"Away From Her," "Waitress" at BMFI

First, let me say that I love Bryn Mawr Film Institute. My family has a membership, so we get discounted tickets, and they're just about the only place in Delaware County that gets the kinds of movies I like to see - indie movies and, though to a lesser extent, foreign films. Now and then I like to see a blockbuster, but I mostly like to see more thoughtful movies that may have slipped through the ordinary studio process because they're a little too complex to be homogenized.

This week I saw two very different movies, each worth seeing - Waitress and Away from Her.

Waitress, which easily could've fallen into cliches about diners and listless young women, was charming and well-acted. Keri Russell carried the movie, aided by razor sharp quips by late writer and director Adrienne Shelly, who also took a supporting role in the film. Sequences featuring the baking of creatively-named pies were particularly notable, as was a late career performance by Andy Griffith as the ornery owner of the pie diner in the film.

Away from Her, which was excrutiating to watch, is a wonderfully made movie about a woman who develops Alzheimer's and the way her husband copes with her illness as she takes up residence in a nursing home. The lovely Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent are wonderful in the movie, and the young writer and director Sarah Polley makes sure that the movie doesn't strike one false note. It's astounding that such a young writer could capture so wonderfully the complexities of older adulthood. It was also refreshing to see a movie that dealt head-on with the sex lives of older people, something that gets neglected or joked about in most other films. Everything about Away from Her made it a must-see. I'm a believer in seeing movies even though they may unnerve you (Children of Men and An Inconvenient Truth are recent examples), and this is one you definitely want to suck it up and see.

I also just got done reading a wonderful book, The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi, a comic tale of a young man who's half white and half Indian living in London. It struck me as similar to the humorous writing style of Zadie Smith, and it kept me riveted throughout. I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a lighter (yet still stimulating) read - for someone else who refuses to stoop to Danielle Steele or James Patterson for their light reading.

Tony Awards Extravaganza Mega-Post!

Now that the big night is fast approaching - June 10th - and the nominees for the 61st Annual Antoinette Perry "Tony" Awards have been announced, it's time to speculate as to who will be taking home statuettes this year!

I'll go through each of the 25 categories one by one, predicting the winner and musing a bit on those most deserving or overlooked.

Best Choreography

Rob Ashford, Curtains
Matthew Bourne & Stephen Mear, Mary Poppins
*Bill T. Jones, Spring Awakening
Jerry Mitchell, Legally Blonde The Musical

To me, it seems likely that, despite a relatively competitive year for choreography, the inventive choreography of Bill T. Jones will take home the Tony this year. Though I was very much impressed by the tremendously energetic choreography for Legally Blonde and by some of the inventive dances in Mary Poppins, I thought that Jones's choreography for Spring Awakening did the best job of adding an extra layer to the show, especially the sensual choreography for "Touch Me" and the spastic dance moves for "Totally F****d."

Best Orchestrations

Bruce Coughlin, Grey Gardens
*Duncan Sheik, Spring Awakening
Jonathan Tunick, LoveMusik
Jonathan Tunick, 110 in the Shade

While Jonathan Tunick is renowned in the Broadway community for his consistent excellence as an orchestrator, this year I think that the voters will acknowledge the work of Duncan Sheik, who managed to meld computerized music with the use of a live band to create a fresh sound for Spring Awakening. While many lament the downsizing of Broadway orchestras in favor of computer-enhanced orchestrations, in this case, the use of computer enhancement adds palpably to the effect of the music. I'm surprised not to see Mary-Mitchell Campbell's orchestrations for Company among those in the running for this award. Despite the fact that I missed the brassiness of the orchestrations on the original Broadway cast recording, orchestrating a John Doyle-directed show is no easy task. Jonathan Tunick (for LoveMusik) and Campbell tied for the Drama Desk Awards, so I suppose Tunick still has a chance, but I think it's likely that the Tony voters will have a different view of the orchestration race than the Drama Desk.

Best Book of a Musical

Rupert Holmes & Peter Stone, Curtains
*Doug Wright, Grey Gardens
Heather Hach, Legally Blonde The Musical
Steven Sater, Spring Awakening

I was terribly surprised when Rupert Holmes and Peter Stone won the Drama Desk for Curtains. I thought that the book for Curtains was perhaps one of the most trite and unfunny (especially for a comedy) that I'd ever come across. Any of the other nominees would, to me, be preferable, but I think that Doug Wright still has a chance at the Tony Award. Wright's book is lovely and subtle, underscoring brilliantly the blurring of the line between the past and the present. Steven Sater still has a shot as well. His book for Spring Awakening captures the feel of 1890s Germany evocatively without losing sight of the updated quality that this modern adaptation employs.

Best Score

Fred Ebb, John Kander & Rupert Holmes, Curtains
Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, Grey Gardens
Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin, Legally Blonde The Musical
*Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater, Spring Awakening

This award, hands down, will go to Spring Awakening. Despite the sentimantality toward Kander & Ebb's score for Curtains, particularly since Fred Ebb died just a few years ago, rewarding a score of this lackluster quality would be criminal. There will still be at least one or two more new Kander & Ebb musicals on Broadway, so I figure the Tony voters figure they'll still have another shot to reward Ebb posthumously. In the meantime, Spring Awakening's score, while perhaps lyrically imperfect, does a perfect job of upholding the production's conceit that, once the musical's 1890s German characters pull their microphones out of their school jackets, they're rock stars, able to express the angsty emotions they've kept pent up inside. The lovely pastiche score for Grey Gardens is also notable, but not to the degree that Spring Awakening's is.

Best Scenic Design (Play)

*Bob Crowley & Scott Pask, The Coast of Utopia
Jonathan Fensom, Journey's End
David Gallo, Radio Golf
Ti Green and Melly Still, Coram Boy

While I liked very much David Gallo's set for Radio Golf, which, besides for being extraordinarily naturalistic, also placed the play's campaign office setting in context within the overall Hill District setting of the play, the voters will likely reward Crowley & Pask for their work on the epic The Coast of Utopia. These design awards are often the most appropriate outlets to reward the more overblown shows on Broadway (they say it's best artistically not to leave humming the sets, and sometimes that's just what you end up doing). Whatever I have to say about the quality of The Coast of Utopia as a play, Lincoln Center Theater certainly devoted a lot of attention to the intricacies of their production, and it showed stunningly.

Best Scenic Design (Musical)

*Bob Crowley, Mary Poppins
Christine Jones, Spring Awakening
Anna Louizos, High Fidelity
Allen Moyer, Grey Gardens

It's likely that Crowley will win for the whimsy and efficiency of his sets for Mary Poppins. I suppose there's a chance that voters will recognize the sparse but highly effective set for Spring Awakening, heavily researched by designer Christine Jones and utilizing on-stage audience seating, but it seems like a long shot.

Best Costume Design (Play)

Ti Green and Melly Still, Coram Boy
Jane Greenwood, Heartbreak House
Santo Loquasto, Inherit the Wind
*Catherine Zuber, The Coast of Utopia

This is another category where spectacle is sure to win out. The Coast of Utopia was a jaw-droppingly large production for Lincoln Center Theater this past season, and its costumes were no exception. The shear number of costumes alone -- 450 -- is insane! And they are quite attractive.

Best Costume Design (Musical)

Gregg Barnes, Legally Blonde The Musical
*Bob Crowley, Mary Poppins
Susan Hilferty, Spring Awakening
William Ivey Long, Grey Gardens

My guess is that Bob Crowley may be taking home several awards on Tony night. His costumes for Mary Poppins are the best bet for a win in this category. It's one of the shows most reliant on splashy costumes, and Crowley's were particularly effective for Poppins. William Ivey Long may also have a shot at the award; his costumes for Grey Gardens were handsome and effective.

Best Special Theatrical Event

*Jay Johnson: The Two and Only
Kiki & Herb Alive on Broadway

I'm not familiar with Kiki & Herb, but The Two and Only was a charming, earnest little show. I went into it thinking, Oh, God, not a show with a ventriloquist, but I was very much pleasantly surprised. Johnson has winning personality and considerable talent. I'm not really sure who will win, but neither of these were particularly noteworthy in the 2006-2007 season.

Best Lighting Design (Play)

Paule Constable, Coram Boy
Brian MacDevitt, Inherit the Wind
*Brian MacDevitt, Kenneth Posner and Natasha Katz, The Coast of Utopia
Jason Taylor, Journey's End

Another win for The Coast of Utopia, I suspect. What more is there to say -- the production was spectacular.

Best Lighting Design (Musical)

*Kevin Adams, Spring Awakening
Christopher Akerlind, 110 in the Shade
Howard Harrison, Mary Poppins
Peter Kaczorowski, Grey Gardens

Kevin Adams is sure to win this award. His inventive use of neon lighting (most effective when viewed from the mezzanine) absolutely enhanced Spring Awakening's already potent brand of theatrical magic. What, for me, constitutes what is considered the "best" in design categories is the success of a design element's integration into the whole of the theatrical experience at hand. If anyone else has a shot, it's Christopher Akerlind, who masterfully lit the gigantic sun onstage at Studio 54 during 110 in the Shade.

Best Direction (Play)

Michael Grandage, Froxt/Nixon
David Grindley, Journey's End
*Jack O'Brien, The Coast of Utopia
Melly Still, Coram Boy

The Coast of Utopia. Tired of hearing that title? So am I. But it takes a strong director to make a good case for a bloated, overblown play like The Coast of Utopia, and Jack O'Brien, a Broadway veteran, was that man. Perhaps Grandage or Grindley have a chance, but I suspect that O'Brien will be rewarded for taking on such a massive undertaking.

Best Direction (Musical)

John Doyle, Company
Scott Ellis, Curtains
Michael Greif, Grey Gardens
*Michael Mayer, Spring Awakening

Michael Mayer looks to be the frontrunner in the Best Director race. His guidance helped a vibrant young cast and inspired creative team put on one hell of a show. Ellis and Greif are longshots, but Doyle, whose inventive Sondheim stagings are all the rage nowadays, may have a chance at the statue for his actor-musician staging of Company.

Best Featured Actor (Play)

Anthony Chisholm, Radio Golf
*Billy Crudup, The Coast of Utopia
Ethan Hawke, The Coast of Utopia
John Earl Jelks, Radio Golf
Stark Sands, Journey's End

This is one category that seems like a wide open playing field. Chisholm and Jelks were both standouts in Radio Golf, and Crudup (and Hawke, to a lesser degree) were adequate in The Coast of Utopia. Sands was also quite effective in Journey's End. My guess is that Crudup will take home the award, but I think Chisholm and Stark Sands also have a palpable chance. This is an award I'm looking forward to.

Best Featured Actress (Play)

*Jennifer Ehle, The Coast of Utopia
Xanthe Elbrick, Coram Boy
Dana Ivey, Butley
Jan Maxwell, Coram Boy
Martha Plimpton, The Coast of Utopia

Though Martha Plimpton took home this award at the Drama Desk Awards (Ehle wasn't nominated), I think that Jennifer Ehle will probably take home the Tony. I'm not familiar with the work of Elbrick, Ivey, or Maxwell, but Ehle was one of the best things about Utopia. I wish she had had a more prominent role throughout the trilogy, but as Natalie Herzen in Shipwreck, she more than proved her acting chops. It was one of the most thrilling performances I saw all year.

Best Featured Actor (Musical)

Brooks Ashmanskas, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me
Christian Borle, Legally Blonde The Musical
John Cullum, 110 in the Shade
*John Gallagher, Jr., Spring Awakening
David Pittu, LoveMusik

In order to reward, in some form, the talents of the young cast of Spring Awakening, I think it will be Gallagher who takes home this award. He's excellent as Moritz, the misfit character, and has excellent comic timing. Borle was winning in Blonde, as was Cullum in 110.

Best Featured Actress (Musical)

Charlotte d'Amboise, A Chorus Line
Rebecca Luker, Mary Poppins
Orfeh, Legally Blonde The Musical
*Mary Louise Wilson, Grey Gardens
Karen Ziemba, Curtains

Mary Louise Wilson was probably the most favorably reviewed among these nominees; she's excellent as Big Edie in the second act of Grey Gardens, just as formidable as Christine Ebersole, who plays her daughter. I guess Ziemba also has a shot, but Wilson looks to be the clear frontrunner.

Best Actor (Play)

Boyd Gaines, Journey's End
*Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Brian F. O'Byrne, The Coast of Utopia
Christopher Plummer, Inherit the Wind
Liev Schreiber, Talk Radio

Here is one of the most competitive categories. All five of these actors got very favorable reviews for their performances. It will likely be Frank Langella, who, despite very little physical resemblance to President Nixon, manages to be absolutely believable in Frost/Nixon. Schreiber also seems like a likely winner, but I'd really like to see Boyd Gaines, who gave a stunningly subdued performance in Journey's End take home this award. Both Langella and Gaines (who was, for the Drama Desk Awards, placed in the featured category) took home Drama Desk Awards last Sunday.

Best Actress (Play)

*Eve Best, A Moon for the Misbegotten
Swoosie Kurtz, Heartbreak House
Angela Lansbury, Deuce
Vanessa Redgrave, The Year of Magical Thinking
Julie White, The Little Dog Laughed

This has to be one of the hardest categories to predict. Kurtz is unlikely to win, but the other four all have a good shot. White gave a brilliant comic performance in The Little Dog Laughed, and Lansbury and Redgrave both reminded audiences of their "legend" statuses. Eve Best, in her first New York role, however, may just take home this award for her brilliant performance as Josie in A Moon for the Misbegotten. Though she doesn't meet the character's brutish character description requirements, her absolute commitment to the role really shone through. This one is hard to predict, but my money is ever so slightly on Best to best the rest. If I got what I wanted, it would probably be Lansbury.

Best Actor (Musical)

Michael Cerveris, LoveMusik
*Raul Esparza, Company
Jonathan Groff, Spring Awakening
Gavin Lee, Mary Poppins
David Hyde Pierce, Curtains

Esparza is the frontrunner in this category. He's brilliant in Company and long overdue for some Broadway recognition. Cerveris and Pierce may be possible winners, but it's most likely that Esparza will finally take home a Tony. Though his piano-playing is minimal in Company, he really allows an audience to tap into his vulerability. Plus, his singing is superb.

Best Actress (Musical)

Laura Bell Bundy, Legally Blonde The Musical
*Christine Ebersole, Grey Gardens
Audra McDonald, 110 in the Shade
Debra Monk, Curtains
Donna Murphy, LoveMusik

There was Tony buzz surrounding Christine Ebersole this time last year, around the time when she was in Grey Gardens off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. She's brilliant as Big Edie in the first act and Little Edie in the second act, and it seems almost certain that she'll take home her second Tony (the first was for 42nd Street). I think that Audra McDonald still has a fighting chance in the Best Actress category. She and Donna Murphy tied at the Drama Desk Awards (Ebersole won last year when Grey Gardens was off-Broadway and was therefore ineligible this time around), so there's a possibility of a shake-up, particularly since Grey Gardens opened so long ago, but Ebersole still seems to be the name on everybody's lips, so we'll have to wait to find out. Everyone in the category, however, is strong.

Best Play Revival

Inherit the Wind
*Journey's End
Talk Radio
Translations

Journey's End was this season's little play that couldn't. I had no idea what it would be about before I saw it. The playwright and director (and most of the cast) are all unknown, and it's a depressing-looking play about World War I. Journey's End has had a consistently hard time attaining an audience (most weeks, it played to 30% or less capacity), but I think it will be recognized for its superb quality come Tony night (which happens to fall on the same night as its closing performance). Boyd Gaines, Hugh Dancy, and Stark Sands, head a cast that is uniformly excellent, and the design elements all came together to present a stunningly powerful production. That reminds me that I've been thinking recently about how egregious it is that there's no category for Best Sound Design. Sound is an integral element to a great Broadway production, and Journey's End was a stunning example of what a great sound designer, in this case Gregory Clarke, can do.

Best Musical Revival

The Apple Tree
A Chorus Line
*Company
110 in the Shade

This one's probably going to John Doyle's inventive staging of Company. I found the overall production to be quite cold and distancing and the actor-musicianship to be inferior to that on display in last season's Sweeney Todd, but Company has favorable reviews and Raul Esparza going for it. With a flimsy book that barely holds up after 37 years, it's a wonder Doyle could salvage Company as well as he could. 110 in the Shade also has a shot, I think, but reviewers (and perhaps Tony voters) found the show a bit too quaint, with the star turn from its leading actress Audra McDonald the major standout of the production.

Best Play

*The Coast of Utopia
Frost/Nixon
The Little Dog Laughed
Radio Golf

When Tom Stoppard set out to write The Coast of Utopia, he was obviously feeling grandiose. He set out to write a play about Russian history and ended up with an 8-hour epic. The play is one huge demonstration of what happens when you're too vainglorious to subject yourself to a sensible regiment of good old-fashioned editing. There is no major story arc, and the play feels like a bloated, obscure history lesson. Nonetheless, it was a hit with critics and audiences alike, most of whom probably felt proud that they were able to sit upright for that long in a theatre. Whatever I found at fault in regards to playwright, however, was at least in part redeemed by a beautiful, well-executed production headed by Jack O'Brien. My pick would be for Radio Golf, the final play in August Wilson's 10-play cycle chronicling African-American life in the United States, but critics found the play to be less engaging than others in the cycle.

Best Musical

Curtains
Grey Gardens
Mary Poppins
*Spring Awakening

There was talk early on in speculation over the Tony race this year that Legally Blonde was going to give Spring Awakening a run for its money. Good out-of-town reviews and appeal to venues that host national tours across the country would have given Legally Blonde a huge leg up, but perhaps the nominators sensed the possibility of an upset and purposefully excluded Blonde. Spring Awakening will almost certainly take home top honors for its revolutionary Broadway production. If it doesn't, it'll be one of the biggest crimes in Tony history (I'd also be satified if Grey Gardens won, but that seems unlikely). I'm surprised by the amount of people who feel that Curtains still has a shot at the award, but Curtains and Poppins have the advantage of being more family-oriented shows with splashy productions that would be more popular for tour audiences (it's the tour producers who ultimately seem to have the greatest hand in these things). I hope Tony voters stick to their artistic guns and reward the show that's truly the best, Spring Awakening, which would also likely do good business in a national tour.

New Music

So, some stuff has come up in my personal life that I won't really go into on here, but I wanted to comment a bit on two new CDs that come highly recommended.

1. Release the Stars by Rufus Wainwright

His first album since 2004's Want Two was supposed to usher in a different, more understated sound for Rufus, but instead of playing down his grand operatic qualities, he came back with this lovely, overstated album. It's my favorite of his so far, in keeping with the level of introspection (some may call it self-indulgence) of his past releases. Besides for the album-stopping "Between My Legs," the other two standouts are "Not Ready To Love" and "Slideshow," the former quiet and lovely, leading seamlessly into the bombast of the latter. The first single, "Going to A Town" is a thoughtful and challenging love letter to the United States. Rufus is a master at integrating his operatic sensibilities into his own uniquely intelligent brand of pop.

2. The Reminder by Feist

Unlike Rufus, with whom I've been familiar for several years by now, I wasn't aware of Feist (whose full non-stage name is Leslie Feist -- she's also the lead singer for Broken Social Scene, a band I'm not familiar with) before buying this album. Apparently, she made a splash amongst indie aficionados with her second album, Let It Die. I'm not familiar with that album, but I was alerted to her newest, The Reminder, by several close sources, and I haven't been disappointed. I had a hard time getting used to her unconventionally raspy voice at first, but the album as a whole grows on me with each new listen. Feist's songwriting skills are on vivid display here with this varied and impressive album. As with Release the Stars, my favorite sequence on this album is a segue from a subdued song into an upbeat one, more specifically the songs "Limit to Your Love" and "1 2 3 4," which also has a fun music video! This, along with Rufus's Release the Stars, is definitely one of those must-hear albums.

Final Theatre Report, My Top Ten List

It's that time of year when I weigh in on my favorite theatregoing experiences of the year. Though I missed out on a few shows I wanted to see (Talk Radio, Inherit the Wind, Coram Boy) and some that I didn't (A Chorus Line, The Pirate Queen), I still caught a great deal of theatre (see the complete list below). Here are my top ten:

1. Spring Awakening

There hasn't been a show like Spring Awakening on Broadway before. Sure, the style is in the vein of Rent, but Spring Awakening pushes the limits of what Broadway theatre should be, integrating classical acting styles with a uniquely contemporary score that highlights the timelessness of teen angst and confusion.

2. Journey's End

I hadn't expected to like Journey's End at all, but it ended up being the most visceral theatrical experience of the season for me with a top-notch cast headed by Hugh Dancy and Boyd Gaines to boot. Nothing could quite beat the thrill of seeing Spring Awakening for the first time, but Journey's End hit me in the gut and really does a good job of recreating a wartime experience for its audience within the confines of the theatre space.

3. Grey Gardens

Christine Ebersole's performance as the Edies in Grey Gardens was the most talked about of the season, considered as a frontrunner for the Tony Award for Best Actress since her off-Broadway run in the show. It's a wonderful performance, but the rest of the production that supports her is equally solid, with a supporting cast that includes Mary Louise Wilson and John McMartin, as well as Erin Davie, who is stunning as Little Edie in the first act. The score is a lovely pastiche, and the book manages to be haunting and camp concurrently.

4. Blackbird

This play won the Olivier Award for Best Play in London last season, so I had high expectations. Needless to say, they were met. Jeff Daniels and Alison Pill act the hell out of this play, which was probably the most thought-provoking of the season to me. This play definitely deserves a Broadway transferin the hopes of its reaching a wider audience, though its immediacy might be lost in the fray.

5. 110 in the Shade

As was the case with The Apple Tree, the last Roundabout production at Studio 54, 110 in the Shade could be called dated. It also has its flaws. But Audra McDonald (who may have a chance against Christine Ebersole at the Tonys) and John Cullum, as well as Audra's leading men, Steve Kazee and Christopher Innvar, make a great case for this old-fashioned musical with a tuneful Western-influenced score. Its "old maid" themes may seem old hat, but McDonald's performance brings out the nuances of this show, which is also supported by a simple yet first-rate production at Studio 54.

6. Radio Golf

Bringing Wilson's ten-play cycle of plays to a close with its 1990s installment, Radio Golf has a cultural immediacy that some of his other plays lack because of their historical perspective. Radio Golf is the most contemporary of Wilson's plays, and the Broadway production it's being given, featuring Harry Lennix and Anthony Chisholm, is first rate. These actors are intimately familiar with Wilson's poetic dialogue, which they imbue with an absolutely appropriate air of heritage forgotten. It may seem that Wilson's window into African-American life has been cracked due to the death of Aunt Ester in King Hedley II, the 1980s Wilson play, but take a closer look and the blues are still there.

7. The Clean House

Along with Christopher Shinn, Sarah Ruhl seems to me among the most inventive of playwrights working today. She just won the MacArthur Grant, and I think she's absolutely deserving. With The Clean House, which circulated the country with regional productions before its New York City debut at Lincoln Center, uses a sort of magical realism in order to mix everyday mishaps with the extraordinary. Jill Clayburgh and Blair Brown headed this wonderfully talented cast. Even when Ruhl's dialogue is less than brilliant, her sense of theatricality and inventiveness are to be lauded.

8. Frost/Nixon

Though I thought that Frost/Nixon as a play was mostly a serviceable docudrama about a subject that may or may not deserve extra special attention, it's most certainly a showcase for two extraordinarily talented actors. Michael Sheen as David Frost, no stranger to the work of Peter Morgan, holds his own in opposition to Frank Langella, who elevates his portrayal of Richard Nixon above mere mimickry. Though the play wasn't my favorite, it was still tautly woven and definitely worth seeing.

9. Dying City

Since seeing Dying City, I've read all of Christopher Shinn's other published plays, and that experience has only made me think more fondly of my experience seeing Dying City. Shinn is able to take an ordinary convention (double casting an actor as identical twins) and make it work absolutely organically within the confines of the tiny rotating stage at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre. His dialogue almost always feels true to life, and there are some absolutely heartbreaking moments within Dying City. It's a play that will be worth reading for the intricacies of its text once it's published, and I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to see a Shinn play.

10. Legally Blonde

Considering how much I was anticipating LoveMusik because of all the talent involved in its production (Hal Prince, Michael Cerveris, Donna Murphy, Alfred Uhry), I had to say I'm unable to include it on my Top 10 list. Despite all its bubblegum kitsch, Legally Blonde absolutely won me over as the feel-good show of the season. It's not the best show by any means, but the production is very solidly constructed and feels genuinely intentioned. It was definitely the most flat-out fun I've had at the theatre this season, and I think that Laura Bell Bundy is a formidable successor to Reese Witherspoon, who played the role of Elle in the movie version.

Pure Fun Runner-Up (11.) Deuce

Last year, my pure fun choice was Lennon. It wasn't the best show, but I had a blast seeing it. This year, my pick is Deuce. No, it's not the best play, but I never felt the play was less than enjoyable. Mostly, it was quite brisk. But the real reason this gets my pick is that I finally got to see Angela Lansbury on a Broadway stage. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I think that her performance will be up against Eve Best's (a standout in A Moon For the Misbegotten) as a leading contender for the Best Actress Tony. Surely, this play had more emotional resonance to me than the chilly The Year of Magical Thinking. It was a fun play in a season that, headed by Lincoln Center's bloated The Coast of Utopia, could have used some much-needed lightening-up (provided in part by Douglas Carter Beane's The Little Dog Laughed).

My final Broadway/off-Broadway/off-off-Broadway Report is as follows:

1. Mother Courage and Her Children
2. Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me
3. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
4. Seven Guitars
5. Seven Guitars
6. The Guys
7. Jay Johnson: The Two and Only
8. Heartbreak House
9. Nixon's Nixon
10. The Times They Are A-Changin'
11. Grey Gardens
12. Wrecks
13. My Name Is Rachel Corrie
14. Suddenly Last Summer
15. subUrbia
16. The Voyage of the Carcass
17. Mary Poppins
18. The Little Dog Laughed
19. Suddenly Last Summer
20. Company
21. The Flood
22. The Clean House
23. Spring Awakening
24. Durango
25. Spring Awakening
26. Two Trains Running
27. High Fidelity
28. The Vertical Hour
29. The Apple Tree
30. The Apple Tree
31. Spring Awakening
32. The Fever
33. Howard Katz
34. The Coast of Utopia -Voyage
35. Follies (Encores)
36. The Coast of Utopia - Shipwreck
37. Spring Awakening
38. King Hedley II
39. The Coast of Utopia - Salvage
40. Prelude to a Kiss
41. Dying City
42. Grey Gardens
43. Jack Goes Boating
44. A Moon for the Misbegotten
45. Blackbird
46. Curtains
47. Frost/Nixon
48. Exits and Entrances
49. All the Wrong Reasons
50. LoveMusik
51. Journey's End
52. Deuce
53. Entrances and Exits
54. In the Heights
55. The Year of Magical Thinking
56. Legally Blonde
57. Radio Golf
58. 110 in the Shade
59. 110 in the Shade

In addition, I saw a performance of La Boheme at New York City Opera and readings of the musical Zorro at 37 Arts and The Marriage of Bette and Boo for Roundabout Theatre Company at the Laura Pels Theatre. I attended or volunteered for the opening nights of Heartbreak House, The Apple Tree, and 110 in the Shade, as well as the 2007 Roundabout Gala at Roseland Ballroom, Beyond the Velvet Rope, featuring disco performances from Broadway favorites in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the opening of Studio 54.

I've seen 33 Broadway and 25 off-Broadway performances this year in addition to one off-off-Broadway performance.

Those in blue are on Broadway.
Those in red are off-Broadway.
Those in black are off-off-Broadway
Plays are in bold.
All others are musicals.

Statistics/Facts:
- The average price paid per show was $18.26.
- 21 performances were free or complimentary.
- The highest prices paid were $69 for The Year of Magical Thinking and $53 for Deuce.
- Celebrities seen who are notable from film and TV include Meryl Streep (Mother Courage), Martin Short (Fame Becomes Me), Ed Harris (Wrecks), Blythe Danner (Suddenly Last Summer), Bill Nighy (The Vertical Hour), Julianne Moore (The Vertical Hour), Kristin Chenoweth (The Apple Tree), Wallace Shawn (The Fever), Alfred Molina (Howard Katz), Ethan Hawke (The Coast of Utopia), Jennifer Ehle (The Coast of Utopia), Billy Crudup (The Coast of Utopia), John Mahoney (Prelude to a Kiss), Philip Semour Hoffman (Jack Goes Boating), Kevin Spacey (A Moon for the Misbegotten), Jeff Daniels (Blackbird), David Hyde Pierce (Curtains), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon), Angela Lansbury (Deuce), Marian Seldes (Deuce), and Vanessa Redgrave (The Year of Magical Thinking).

"110 in the Shade"

In the last few days before returning home to Pennsylvania, I had the opportunity to see 110 in the Shade, the last Roundabout show of the season, twice at Studio 54. I had very much been anticipating this production, mostly because I'd never before seen Audra McDonald live on stage. I had very little familiarity with the show, so I wasn't sure at all what to expect. I was able to extend my stay in New York by a few extra days with special permission from NYU Housing in order to finish up my term as business intern at Roundabout and to volunteer at the 110 in the Shade opening night, so 110 was very much a major part of my last week in New York.

As a show, 110 in the Shade doesn't have the makings of a "hit." It's a simple tale about a self-described "plain" girl, Lizzie Curry, who is caught between her allegiance to her father (played by Broadway legend John Cullum) and brothers and the hearts of two very different men - the sheriff, File (Christopher Innvar) and a wandering con man named Starbuck (Steve Kazee).

It's a simple story with simple songs, but there were several really key elements to the production that make it stand out as one of the highlights of the season to me. First and foremost was Audra McDonald, a beautiful woman who manages to pull off playing a plain country gal thanks in part to Santo Loquasto's humble Western-style costumes. Even more so, it's her wonderful acting skills that keep Lizzie an interesting multi-dimensional character despite the limits of an old-fashioned book. She sings beautifully and makes you believe she's right at home on a Western farm. As File, Innvar is appropriately buttoned-up, and Kazee plays Starbuck with just the right amount of whimsy to make you believe that Lizzie would fall under his spell.

John Cullum is also particularly effective. I'd seen him before in Urinetown, and he was appropriately devilish then. But here, in a much more restrained role, he's absolutely winning as H.C. Curry, Lizzie's father. He's able to give his character the appropriate amounts of shading for an audience to believe he's fooled himself and his daughter with fanciful talk all their lives and still believe that he's got the best of intentions all along.

The design elements of the show are also among the highlights of the production for me. The set, featuring a sparse wooden turntable and a giant moving elliptical sun, is simple but beautiful, able to morph appropriately throughout the production and accommodate the quick succession of scene changes, aided by the scorching warm tones used by lighting designer Christopher Akerlind.

Despite all of what I have to say about how slight the show is, however, the music is still beautiful and appropriately simple in concordance with the plot, featuring standouts like "Old Maid," "Raunchy," and "Wonderful Music" that highlight a cast of wonderful singers.

Overall, though the show is a bit out of date, it's still worth seeing. Its "old maid" themes may seem antiquated, but they still speak to the lonely hearts of today. First and foremost, it's Audra McDonald and the beautiful design of the production, though, that should draw audiences in.

Fore!

So tonight I went to see Radio Golf, the last of the plays in August Wilson's ten-play "Pittsburgh Cycle" chronicling the African-American experience throughout each decade of the twentieth century. After being introduced to August Wilson shortly after his death when I attended the renaming of the Virginia Theatre as the August Wilson Theatre (the first Broadway theatre to be named after an African-American), I also had a class on Wilson last semester, during which we attended three other Wilson plays at the Signature Theatre Company (Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running, King Hedley II). Wilson is one of my absolute favorite playwrights, so I was very much anticipating Radio Golf.

I'd read the play in advance and was aware of the way that it relates to Gem of the Ocean, the play in Wilson's cycle set during the 1910s, but seeing Radio Golf, which is set in the 1990s, was a much more poignant experience than I'd expected. When reading the play as part of my Wilson class, I felt that it provided a satisfying conclusion to his cycle, and seeing the play only reinforced that notion - the actors do a terrific job breathing life into a play that, while well-written, is more straightforward than some of his other plays, closer to the work of Eugene O'Neill.

The play focuses on Pittsburgh politician Harmond Wilks, who's seeking election as the mayor of the city. Aided by his wife, an up-and-coming publicist, and his best friend Roosevelt Hicks, he's building a name for himself. Besides for his political career, he's also helping to spearhead a development project entailing the demolition of the house at 1839 Wylie. Here lies the central conflict of the play. Local Elder Joseph Barlow wants to reclaim the land his mother, Aunt Ester Tyler owned, and handyman Sterling Johnson is willing to stand behind him.

As Harmond, Harry Lennix provides an emotional center for the play, but Anthony Chisholm is the reason to see the play. His Elder Barlow is full of gusto and gives the play the sense of historical groundedness that is so essential to the text. The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, aided by realistic sets by David Gallo that succeed in presenting Wilks's office as a moral center in the midst of a blighted community.

Ritual and ancestry play an integral role in Radio Golf as in many of Wilson's other works. There is nothing as grandiose as the "City of Bones" scene in Gem of the Ocean, the 1910s Wilson play that was the last Wilson play to reach Broadway before this one, but watch how Wilson uses paint within the play, and it's easy to see how Wilson feels that even modern characters haven't truly strayed from their African/ritualistic roots.

While having experienced other Wilson plays is certainly helpful before seeing Radio Golf, I don't imagine it would impede someone from enjoying the play. It's perhaps my favorite new play of the season, and I'd encourage theatregoers who may even be a bit skeptical about August Wilson to check out Radio Golf. Despite the fact that Wilson gears his drama toward the African-American community, there are pleasures to be had by all people in the intricacies of his richly woven human dramas.

Illegally Magical Heights

It's been a while since I've checked in, but there are plenty shows I've seen that need to be reviewed!

In the Heights

I'd read the reviews for In the Heights, a new off-Broadway musical about the return of Nina, a freshman at Stanford in California, for her first summer back home in Brooklyn Heights, Manhattan, but what I initially read about the show didn't really impress me. In a last-ditch effort to see a few more musicals before returning home for the summer, however, I made a trip to the 37Arts theatre complex to check out this earnest little musical which is rumored for a Broadway transfer (we'll see how that pans out). Besides for the question of whether or not Nina will return to school in California, the other modest but captivating dilemmae of the show include the love life of local shopkeeper Usnavi, played by the show's creator Lin-Manuel Miranda (at the center of the photo above and at right), and the lottery win of Abuela Claudia, Usnavi's grandmother and the earth mother figure of the neighborhood, who relies on her overwhelming store of pacienca y fe - patience and faith.

It's an extraordinarily energetic show, with a score full of Latin- and hip hop-inspired songs by creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has an unconventional underdog charm about him. The set by Anna Louizos, another great asset of the show, is evocative of a vibrant neighborhood and its storefronts, a lovely likeness of the Brooklyn Bridge featured prominently in the background.

Though the show is a bit loud and it's hard to really take in every lyric of the show, it has a well-meaning quality about it similar to Rent. Its story is easy enough to follow, and I could see the show appealing to just about any urban young person - provided you could get many of these urban young people to go to the theatre in the first place. It's certainly a production worthy of a home on Broadway where it could appeal to a broader audience, but the people who made the brief (but tourist-unfriendly) trek over to the West Side seemed to enjoy what they saw!

The Year of Magical Thinking

The one play that I wanted to see this year was The Year of Magical Thinking. Joan Didion is one of my favorite authors, David Hare is one of my favorite playwrights, and Vanessa Redgrave is one of the actors I most admire, so I took the plunge and bought myself a second row seat. With Didion adapting her Award-winning memoir for the stage, Hare directing, and Redgrave starring, what could go wrong?

The answer: not a lot. But something at the play's heart. It's hard for me to place exactly what I found unsatisfying about The Year of Magical Thinking. It's a very well-shaped one-woman play, expressly calculated to move the audience and cut to the emotional core of the grieving process. The play is about the character of Joan Didion (played by Vanessa Redgrave - confused?) and the way she copes with the death of her husband and the illness and subsequent death of her daughter Quintana. Redgrave delivers most of the dialogue from a deck chair at center stage, ploughing through the material like a real trooper. For the most part she succeeds, and the production that surrounds her is often impressive.

While the sets by Bob Crowley were evocative of the somber mood of the show, they were ultimately a distraction to the proceedings. The show's single costume by Ann Roth was lovely and flattering. The lighting of Jean Kalman deserves special mention, particularly during a stunning scene in which Redgrave abandons her sitting position to wander in the darkness, her figure illuminated by the flashes of light from nearby fireworks, a wonderful evocation of Didion's fractured thinking - the punctures of memories that arise and fall away as quickly as bursts of light.

This is where Redgrave's acting succeeds most - when she is most vulnerable to the snares of memory and "magical thinking," a psychological term describing the "what if" thinking of a grieving individual. There are icy moments when Redgrave seems utterly caught by the "vortex" effect she describes in the play, as if she's performing the play for the very first time and has suddenly fallen prey to her memories.

Ultimately, however, I'm unable to call the evening an unwavering success. Though many of the show's parts are exquisite, there is something I can't entirely put my finger on that's missing from the whole of the show. Though Joan Didion has written a play that is certainly well-crafted, she has, to me at least, missed the heart of the subject. Never once was I left discomfited, and this was a play where I went in expecting to be absolutely rended by the material. At times, the play even achieves a level of humor utterly absent from the source material, and while I wasn't so much bothered by the lighter feel of the play, I wished Didion would have dug deeper during the play's darker, more stream-of-conscious-influenced moments (especially a particularly powerful "vortex" moment in the play).

Overall, it was great to see Vanessa Redgrave work her magic, and the play was different enough from the book to hold my interest thoughout, but I left the play unmoved. Guiltily enough, I had a far better time at Deuce, a play by which I was genuinely moved despite its far inferior quality and craftmanship. Both plays featured equally effective actresses, but there was something about the earnestness of the characters in Deuce, a play similarly focused on the topic of aging and death, that I never got from the "cool customer" Didion character at the heart of of The Year of Magical Thinking.

Legally Blonde

When I first heard that the 2001 film Legally Blonde, which starred then up-and-coming Reese Witherspoon, was being adapted into a musical, I cringed. Why, God, why? I lamented. Broadway is already so rife with movie adaptations and jukebox musicals - write something original already! Still, the show's music was being co-written by Laurence O'Keefe, composer of the hilarious off-Broadway musial Bat Boy, and his songwriting partner Nell Benjamin, so I kept my hopes up.

It turns out this show is an absolute winner. In the vein of long-runner Hairspray and High Fidelity, the latest of the movie adaptation musicals to open (and close) on Broadway, Legally Blonde utilizes a high energy pop-rock score to tell a familiar story. There is an earnestness, however, behind this production that isn't always on display in movie-to-musical adaptations. We as audience members really do get behind brainy sorority blonde Elle Woods as she learns to embrace who she is.

At the heart of Legally Blonde is relative newcomer Laura Bell Bundy (featured at right), best known to little girl Broadway fans as one of the original standbys for Glinda in the musical Wicked. Bundy is an excellent choice for the role of Elle Woods, a sorority girl who follows her ex-boyfriend from UCLA to Harvard Law School in order to win him over with her charm and social prowess. Soon enough, Elle learns it's going to take more thinking and less drinking to win her way into the arms of her man. Bundy plays her character's highs and lows with high energy, proving herself worthy of a leading role in a musical. She has a certain perky charm that even succeeds in exceeding that of Reese Witherspoon (in my unpopular opinion).

Along the way, Elle meets Emmett, a Harvard grad who helps her along the way. Emmett is played excellently by Christian Borle, who never lets his geeky character descend into caricature. Emmett's song "Chip on My Shoulder," about his drive to better himself despite a checkered past, is one of the highlights of the show, a bouncy ballad that proves that the show may be full of pop songs, but it's still able to maintain a quality of groundedness.

In the role of Paulette, portrayed hilariously on screen by Jennifer Coolidge, Orfeh falls a bit short, failing to rise to the comedic heights of Coolidge, but still she's a talented performer and a winning personality. Richard H. Blake, Kate Shindle, Nikki Snelson, and Broadway vet Michael Rupert provide excellent support, and Leslie Kritzer, Annaleigh Ashford, and DeQuina Moore are highlights as the "Greek" (get it?) chorus in Elle's mind.

The production that backs this fabulous cast is well-oiled and stunning. Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, the show's production numbers are bright and bouncy, punctuated by snap, crackle, and pop hip hop dance moves that play out in harmony with bright over-the-top sets by Hairspray designer David Rockwell. Though the musical, like the movie, never takes itself too seriously, its characters are always endearing. Mitchell at times allows the show to descend into gooey Hollywood hilarity, but never for long enough to lose the audience (the closest to this disaster was a courtroom scene in which Elle attempts to peg the pool boy witness as either "gay or European" - funny, but too drawn out).

Overall, Legally Blonde is a return to form for the movie-to-musical genre. It's sometimes over-the-top and sometimes lacking in the lyrics department, but try to stop yourself from having an absolute blast. And, thanks to the talented cast and more than adequate book by Heather Hach, you actually care about the characters - how about that? Spring Awakening is still my pick for Best Musical, but omigod you guys, I think I just found the most fun musical of the season. If only there were a Tony Award category for that!

In other news...

Last Saturday, I went with a gaggle of friends to Coney Island, which was lovely. It was so nice to be by the ocean for a day, and the weather was beautiful. We saw the freak show, which was certainly a unique "theatrical" experience.

I also saw two good movies: The Lives of Others and Year of the Dog. Both come highly recommended.

Summer is fast approaching (less than 5 days left), but I'm still soldiering on! I'm seeing August Wilson's Radio Golf tomorrow night and then 110 in the Shade on Sunday and also on its opening night, Wednesday, May 9!