This is my interview with Gavin when he was touring in Into the Woods. Thank you Gavin for your time, your artistry and your generosity. You will truly be missed.

Whether that’s intrinsically a part of the characters he’s playing or just who he is as an actor, Ceel is easily one of the most likable people in musicals today. Take his performance as The Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods. Even though The Wolf is menacing (in a dandy sort of way) and the Prince is “raised to be charming, not sincere,” Creel is sincerely charming and, when the role calls for it, charmingly sincere.

Into the Woods is finishing its mini-tour of ten cities with a final stop in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson Theatre. The show runs June 27th – July 30th. Creel, who played the part on Broadway, is joined by many of the production’s Broadway cast including Sebastian Arcelus, Stephanie J. Block, Katy Geraghty, Montego Glover, Kennedy Kanagawa and Nancy Opel.

I recently spoke with Creel who was in San Francisco for the penultimate stop of Into the Woods. In our conversation we talked about Stephen Sondheim, why the cast took this show on the road and about his own show, Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice, which will have its world premiere in November at MCC Theater in New York. Los Angeles audiences can get a preview of that show when Creel performs at The Hotel Cafe in Hollywood on July 24th.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: In 2003 you were in Stephen Sondheim’s Bounce [later renamed Road Show] in Chicago and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. What did you learn from that experience of working on Sondheim’s material that perhaps informs the work you’re now bringing to Into the Woods? 

What comes to mind is that I watched the greatest, at that time, living musical theater composer and arguably the greatest living producer director of our musical theater time: Hal Prince. I watched them in the mud. I got to watch them trying to make the lotus blossom. And if I’m honest, it wasn’t successful. Obviously it wasn’t commercially successful, but it was bumpy. 

I did this very foolish innocently enough thing of deciding that they must come out of the womb formed. These ideas must just be hatched in brilliance. And I was like, Oh yeah, this moment isn’t really that great. Sondheim can write something that’s really not that great. And then Sondheim goes, “This is really not that great. How do I make this great or I can do this here and do this, and then watch it become something that went to the next level.” To see that in front of you is very humbling and an encouraging and freeing experience. 

How would you compare the process of working on a musical with Stephen Sondheim to working on one of his most successful musicals, arguably his most successful musical, without him any longer?

It was sad, I have to say. James Lapine, on the first day of rehearsal, we all circled up and everybody and there was a space next to him. He said, “It’s odd to me that there’s a space. I feel like Steve made a space for himself. This is a bittersweet moment because we’re all here to lift this beautiful piece up and I’m honored that you’re doing this piece that I wrote with Steve, and Steve would be standing next to me.”

This is sounds woo woo, but I think Steve was guiding us from the other side. I still feel a presence. It’s a rock concert response to our show in a way that James is like, I don’t understand what’s happening. It’s crazy. I think that is definitely a testament to the show being so beloved for almost 40 years. But I also think we were guided. I think there was a spirit on the other side. The best spirit of all going, “I’m going to help.” It got into all of our hearts. 

When I saw the show at the St. James in New York in December it looked to me like everybody was having the time of their lives, which is not easy to do as an actor. How much of it is the fact that you are all genuinely having a good time?

It is really hard to fake joy in that way. Even if you’re doing a really good job of it, the audience can sniff it out. I’m personally having the time of my life. I did not expect to be a part of this. I was going to go watch my best friend Sara [Bareilles who was the original Baker’s Wife] in the concert at City Center. And then [director] Lear deBessonet called me and was like, “Hey, would you ever consider coming in?” The first time my ego was like, I don’t want to play that part. I want to be the baker. And then I thought about it. Let’s just do the job. I need the health insurance. I’ll have a good time. I’ll get to hang out with Sara again. We had such a good time doing Waitress for that small amount of time together [in 2019]. Here I am, over a year later, still getting to tell the story across the country. We are literally still having fun and I can’t believe this leg of it is going to be done in six weeks. It’s nuts. We’re very sad to let it go. 

Many of you who appeared in this production on Broadway have come together to continue telling this story. That is very rare these days for so many cast members to take a show on the road. Why do you think the mold was broken for Into the Woods? 

I think the world has changed since what we went through. The pandemic changed me. Certainly I can speak for myself of just really appreciating what you have in a new way. I just don’t think we were ready to let it go. What a gift! This just dropped in my lap. Personally, I could save money. I could work. I could see the country. I could take a breath from everything that we’ve been through. I think that story sort of whispered through the building. Gavin’s going to go and hey, you think about going on? Let me tell you why I’m going. When does this ever happen? We could actually all go together. Our show was definitely closing [in New York] because New York, New York needed a theater. We had to close, but we didn’t feel ready to be finished. 

I think one of the one of the main things that Sondheim wanted to get across with this particular work, and he said so in an interview around the time of the release of the film, was that the message of Into the Woods is about community responsibility. There’s obviously a sense of community within Broadway. There’s a sense of community within this company. Do you think that this musical offers any insight into how we perhaps can better serve ourselves by coming together as a community in our regular lives? 

Yes. I think it’s two parts, to be honest. The whole thing starts with “I wish, more than anything.” If we can acknowledge that everybody wants something for themselves then we can see the shared community in that fact. How wonderful it would be if we could help each other get what each other wants. And this musical lays that out so beautifully.

The other I was going to say is when you said that about community, no one is alone. On the surface it seems like it means I’m with you. But also I’m with you in helping you get what you want. We can work together to help you achieve your dreams. There’s always a force outside of you that’s greater than you, that is against you in some way. The giant isn’t bad. “Witches can be right. Giants can be good. You decide what’s right. You decide what’s good.” The giant is just trying to do what they can to survive. We can see the community in that statement, which is what I think the show really illuminates. It means more than just you’re not alone, as in you don’t have to be sad and lonely. It means you’re not alone in your desires, your dreams, your wishes, your hopes. I’ve got them, too. So let’s both dream together.

You’ve been working on Confessions of a Museum Novice for a while and you’ve been performing it a concert version off and on in different places. How has the work evolved since you first started sharing this with the world? 

It continues to evolve. Originally I was invited to have a meeting with Limor Tomer and Erin Flannery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who run the Live Art series. They said, would you like to come to the Met? We’ll give you a membership card at the museum. Look around. And when you find a piece of art or pieces, anything that you’re inspired by within the building, let us know and we’ll help you produce a show for one night at the Met. I’d never been there. I was an imposter syndrome times a million. I’m not a huge fine art person. Museums tend to overwhelm me, but I went for it. 

We ended up doing it in October of 2021 with a fully masked audience for two shows and it was electric. I have to turn this into a musical. I have to expand this a bit, too. I still play Gavin Creel. It’s still about a man who’s having a sort of a midlife meltdown who for some reason called the Metropolitan Museum of Art to try to figure his life out by walking through and figuring out what’s going on. It’s about love and life and art and loneliness and ultimately forgiveness and love again.

What we’re going to do in L.A. is we’re going to do the first 45 minutes of the show to give people a taste. And then we’re going to do some covers, theater and pop covers to give people some stuff they know.

Let’s go back 17 years ago to when your album GoodTimeNation came out. You have a song on there about what Might Still Happen. What has you most optimistic about what might still happen to you personally and professionally?

I wrote that as a kid 20 years ago on the roof of my studio apartment; 250 square feet. Some of the hardest and happiest times I’ve had. One of the best lessons of living in New York in 250 square feet is you have everything you need in that much space. Anything past that is icing. I have a two bedroom apartment, thank God now, but I could live in 200 square feet if you made me. I might sell it all and just chill. My buddy Robbie Roth, who I made my first two records with, we would crawl up to the roof illegally because the fire door didn’t shut. We would sit up there, put a blanket down and pick around with melodies. That song is ultimately about heartbreak, but it’s hope.

It was a call to my future self. It makes me emotional to think about the idea of being a young person and feeling really sad but saying there’s good stuff coming, keep going. You can’t know the future, so just sit in the present. Just be. Get yourself a beer, get a friend, get a guitar, get on the roof, look out over the city. There’s possibility everywhere.

Not to bring it back to Into the Woods, but I was really broken before the pandemic, through the pandemic and after. It was just a terrible time in my life. Into the Woods was like this beautiful life raft that not only buoyed me out of storm, but it continued to lift me and set me down on solid ground. I will never forget this time that I’ve had and I just hope that we pack the house at the Ahmanson because I want to go out with a bang.

To see the full interview with Gavin Creel, please go here.

Main Photo: Gavin Creel in the Broadway production of Into the Woods (Photo by Matthew Murphy and Ryan Zimmerman for MurphyMade/Courtesy Center Theatre Group)

The post REST IN PEACE: Gavin Creel: “It’s Really Hard to Fake Joy” appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet has its official opening night at the Ahmanson Theater on Wednesday, January 31st where it will play through February 25th. Though the production was first staged in England in 2019, this marks the North American premiere of Romeo and Juliet. After Los Angeles it will be performed in Paris, Tokyo and Seoul.

Two weeks ago I spoke with composer Davies about his approach to adapting Prokofiev’s music (usually performed by a large orchestra) to a much smaller and more intimate ensemble to match Bourne’s concept for his ballet. We also discussed his process of collaborating with Bourne and how music is heard, not just by Davies, but by us all. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: I read a story that was written about you around the time of The Red Shoes where you stated that you have two favorite parts of your collaborations with Matthew Bourne and the first is your early discussions about the works with Matthew. What do you remember about your earliest conversations about Romeo and Juliet?

Matthew’s projects can tend to come from the distant horizon. I kind of smell them coming. There’s no kind of one exposure of what’s going on, so things become clearer as time as time approaches. It’s a slowish process, to be honest. Before we start to work we talk – probably a comparable conversation to the one he has with Lez Brotherston about the sets – about what the concept is, what his take on the story is, and so on. Then when we start to work seriously, I banked a lot of information and then we talk through the drama. 

I interviewed Matthew Bourne in 2013. At that time he said, “At some point I’ve got to do Romeo and Juliet, which I’ve just never done.” Can you give me a sense of what that timeline might have been from 2013 to this work debuting in 2019? 

I think through those years, Matt usually had a couple of things that he’d like to do, and then it’s a question of what can be done with the various complications. The Red Shoes was a bit of a minefield in terms of rights and so on. So those sort of things play a part. What can we do and so on. I think really it was probably in the year and the year prior we were talking about starting to firm up ideas of how it was going to be.

What is there to do with Romeo and Juliet that hasn’t been done before?

Matthew always works from a character place. He wanted it to be very young. We had done an education project here involving amateur young people in their teens who just were cast. They weren’t dancers from dance schools. They were ordinary kids. It was a very fine experience. I think this was a kind of next step along from that, the people who were a little bit older, but they’re very young dancers. They’re all professionals, of course.

If it’s a more youthful approach, I would assume that is one of the mandates that you have is to give this this score, as beloved as Prokofiev’s work is, a younger sensibility. Could you talk about how you address that? 

Yeah. It’s young. When you see the setting this will make more sense. But the majority of the company is young. They are in some unspecified institution. Some of them are definitely mentally frail and they are incarcerated. The score is fantastic, but it’s also lush and routinely would be 75, 80 players. We’re talking about 15 [players], but I didn’t want to do reduction. I didn’t want to just cut down the score. The score is fantastic. It deserves better than that. I really like the idea of going very small and something that was very fragile, very brittle. Like the characters seem to me.

Matthew Bourne’s work requires absolute precision. How much does that influence what you’re doing in relation to his his choreography?

Not very much, to be honest. I don’t get too bound up with those things, really. Everything you just said is absolutely true. But in Romeo and Juliet, more than some of the other pieces, my approach is to lay out some firm boundaries and firm grid pattern for how things are going to proceed. He likes, and encourages, dancers to bring something of themselves to throw a sidelight on a character’s journey. That’s more the case in this than in some of the other productions.

I don’t think about anything physical when I’m working, unless he says I really want to build to something in this particular moment. Then I can I obviously structure it in that way. But I don’t get involved with actual movement. I don’t try to visualize it. What I do is tell the story of the scene that we’re working on,and it makes sense to me and invites movement.

When you’re dealing with a classic score like Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and you’re working with Matthew Bourne, who innovates with everything that he does, where are the decisions made creatively about truncating a score to more expeditiously tell the story, and how much of that is planned out in advance, or is it a work-in-progress as the ballet progresses?

During the development process he has in his head sections that that he wants to work with for certain pieces. That’s very much him, really. Sometimes it isn’t quite practical to make it work exactly as he hopes snd then we have to just find a way. Those sort of decisions are really his and that’s fine by me.

Have you ever imagined what your own score to Romeo and Juliet might sound like instead of reworking Prokofiev’s? 

No, that’s a a good one. I’ve written for Romeo and Juliet twice on the stage, but as a play. There are various set pieces within the play. But no, I haven’t ever done it because I haven’t needed to. I do like to start from what story I’m trying to tell, what the real detail of it is. Those are the ingredients that I start from and I never approach any score for anything at all with a preconception.

Many of Matthew Bourne’s works have sound effects layered into the score. Many film composers with whom I’ve spoken have told me they often wish that their score didn’t have to do battle with sound effects. What’s your relationship to the marriage of score and sound effects in general, and more specifically in your collaborations with Matthew Bourne? 

In general, it is a bit of a nightmare within the film world because you never have no control over the mix. You might have some input, possibly, but that can be a very disturbing experience if you’re not careful. With Matthew’s stuff, the sound is a chap called Paul [Groothius]. He has done most of the most of the shows with Matthew. He knows what we’re doing and so he would never get in my way. It’s never a problem. There are a lot of sounds. It’s very filmic and on stage really. I’m very happy with that. But the music has to be there for the narrative. Structurally it’s very important. 

I mentioned earlier that you said that there were two things that you loved most. You said that your second favorite part was working with the musicians to record the score. What made recording this score for Romeo and Juliet unique amongst the other collaborations that you’ve had with your musicians for this work? 

It was different, actually. If you can imagine Romeo and Juliet for 15 musicians, they have to be all soloists and they are at the top of their game. So like any performing artist who’s good, they like to show off. They like to display their skill and they enjoy it. When the music is as good as Prokofiev’s then you can’t keep them away actually.

One of my favorite credits of yours is on set conductor for Florence Foster Jenkins. I bring it up is because it’s a whole different look at what music is and how we hear it. How do you think the way you personally listen to music has evolved over the years, and how do you think it might be different than the way Matthew Bourne or myself or anyone else hears music? 

I don’t know. I do remember I was completely baffled as a kid when people saw stories in the music. It’s really weird. I was studying and doing my stuff at school in my teens. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Now it sort of completely flipped the other way. It’s all about storytelling, but music has never given me images. What it does for me is give you emotions. For me music is about emotion. Nothing does it in the same way because it’s so abstract and it’s the abstract nature of it that makes it so powerful and, for what it’s worth, so dangerous for directors. It always makes an emotional impact for me. And that’s when it works. To sit in a theater and watch a thousand people responding to the emotions that we’re laying out, that’s enough for me. 

To watch the full interview with Terry Davies, please go here.

Main Photo: Monique Jonas and Rory Macleod in Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet (Photo by Jonas Persson/Courtesy Center Theatre Group)

The post Composer Terry Davies Reworks Prokofiev’s Ballet Music… appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

For the first time since this musical debuted (in its present incarnation – see below) in 2010, the words and music of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land lyrics; Dear Evan Hansen) will be heard in Los Angeles. The show officially opens on December 8th at the Ahmanson Theatre where it will play through December 31st.

Carsten’s role of Jean Shepherd reflect the name of the man whose childhood stories informed the 1983 film about a boy in the 1940s whose one wish for Christmas was to receive a Red Ryder toy BB gun. Shepherd co-wrote the film and served as the off-screen narrator. For the musical Carsten is very much on stage. Lurking in corners of scenes. Watching from a far. Often center stage.

It’s a role Carsten has been playing off-an-on (due to the seasonal nature of the show itself and the pandemic) since 2014. That was the starting point for my conversation earlier this week with the actor.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: In Jean Shepard’s A Christmas Story, the book that inspired the beloved film, he wrote, “As the old truism goes, every man has his chance, and when yours comes, you would better grab it.” What do you remember most about your auditioning and casting process to become a part of the ensemble of this musical in 2014?

Carsten: I remember the competition. I was up against very talented gentlemen, Chris[topher] Swan and he eventually ended up getting the part. I had a pretty good working relationship with [Executive Producer] Dan Sher at that time, and we’ve known each other a long time. I figured they would find out some way to work me in. It was a fun process.

It was a little difficult because the original cast album of A Christmas Story is not what we do today. The material we were getting was different than what we’ve been rehearsing with and practicing by listening to the original cast album. But it was still a lot of fun. It was challenging, but a lot of fun. 

The character was off-camera in the film and now on stage in the musical. How do you approach Jean Shepherd?

I’ve always kind of patterned it after Jean Shepherd’s energy in the film because you never see him. But in the musical, you see the narrator throughout the entire stories weaving in and out of the sets. That’s a different dynamic than the film. So you have to go by his energy, which is wonderful and infectious. Not that I was trying to do an impression of Jean Shepherd, I certainly develop my own take, but zeroing in on that energy that he captured during the film is what I’ve tried to base my performance on.

How was your relationship to the show evolved since you first became a part of it?

Every incarnation that we put together is different. It’s the same material, but you’re bringing in different people almost every time. The kids are always going to be different because they grow and change – even though several years ago we brought in some of the same kids the next year because they still fit the physical requirements, they looked young enough. The people are going to be different and you’re going to get a different interpretation and a different response. That’s a wonderful, delightful challenge because it keeps your mind sharp. 

What do you think it is about this story that resonates with you personally and that also resonates with audiences? And I’m assuming they may not necessarily be the same thing.

A Christmas Story, when it first came out, to my understanding, it wasn’t that well-received by critics. I don’t think it was a startling commercial success, but over the years developed a loyal following with the marathons every Christmas and everybody watches it. I am certainly one of those people. There’s a uniqueness to this story that you don’t find that often in other Christmas stories. Here’s a slice of Americana and I think people identify with it on a large scale because people in this country, when they grew up as kids, they all had a special gift that they wanted and I think they can latch on to that.

One of the things that our director, Matt Lenz, says about his approach to the show is, yes, it’s stressful. You want to get all these things done. It’s Christmas time. Rush, rush, rush, rush. But [we] wouldn’t have it any other way. He constantly reminds all of us that that’s the joy we’re trying to latch on to. I think A Christmas Story captures that because there’s so much to be exasperated about: from the leg lamp to the kid sticking his tongue to the flagpole. All these crazy things going on and yet we wouldn’t have it any other way. 

As I’m sure you know, Pasek and Paul were not the original composers/lyricists for the musical. There was another composer who was on it when it had its world premiere. But a year later, Pasek and Paul had come in and the show debuted in Seattle in 2010. Given what you know as a performer about Pasek and Paul and their work, what do you think they do that’s so right with this show in terms of expressing it through their songs?

I’m not sure why it didn’t work out. But we find two extremely gifted artists in Pasek and Paul that found a way to bring the story to life. My own opinion is that when you watch the film of A Christmas Story, it almost seems like it’s tailor made to be made into a musical. When Ralphie goes into his daydreams there’s this different world that’s created. When I watch that, I say, Yes, you could make this into a musical – just find the right guys to put it to music, adapt it however you need to adapt it. This lends itself to a different kind of expression and that other expression is in the musical form. Pasek and Paul are extremely talented and they probably easily found ways to create and make this musical just soar. 

Their lyrics align easily with Jean Shepherd’s material. It feels like it has the same rhythm and cadence as Jean Shepherd did.

He had a great way with words. And I think if you’re going to attack a project like this, if you’re Pasek and Paul, you certainly have to pay attention to that rhythm. You certainly have to pay attention to the way he tells a story. His viewpoint is very interesting, unique and different. When you have that to go by, it can open up creative avenues.

I think they really paid attention to Jean Shepherd’s style, his vision and used that to help guide them along the way. As well as their own style and vision, of course, to make it their own and brought it to life. The results are they speak for themselves. It’s been a really fun ride.

It does feel like there is a certain nostalgia for a simpler time when all a kid wanted was a BB gun as opposed to these weapons of mass destruction that have been used on high school campuses and other places around the country. Do you feel like A Christmas Story reminds us of what life was like when it was simpler? When we didn’t have so many things that we could be angry about? That a boy’s desire for a BB gun was just because it was a BB gun and not because it was anything more than that?

It’s something that, even since 2014, you have to be delicate about. If you’re going to talk about a gun, you need to be clear that it’s a different connotation now than it was back then. You have to be sensitive about that. I think the powers that be, the artistic people, are making subtle, small changes to make sure that we’re not talking about a real gun. We’re talking about a child’s present – a toy gun. We want to make it clear that there’s a distinction, especially in the light of what’s been going on in this country. It’s important that we make that distinction because the story is so wonderful. We don’t want to lose that wholesomeness. We don’t want to lose that simplicity. 

On that recording you mentioned earlier in our conversation, and I don’t know if this is still the same way in the show, Jean says in the final scene about parents that it was “their job was to raise you. Your job was to listen.” He then reveals that the best part of the gift was that it was from his old man. How much does a line like that reflect both your own childhood and your role as a father of three daughters?

When we get down to that moment at the end of the show and we talk about how what that means to Jean Shepherd and what that means to Ralphie, I think it’s so well written that those emotions are there. They’re truthful, they’re real, they’re honest.

When I align it with my own life it becomes very special for me. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with my father growing up because of the dynamics of my parents’ relationship. Even though my dad wasn’t around a lot, I still loved him deeply, truly and fully. The times I did get to spend with him are times that I treasure. But I also feel the same way about my mother. The parental relationship that we explore in this production is so wonderful. But when I get to that moment at the end, I’m contemplating my own life, my own relationship with my parents, the emotions that come to me. They’re always there.

I would assume it gets you thinking about what your own relationship is now that you’re in the father role.

Yes, absolutely. I’m hoping my kids, when they become adults, that they’re going to be able to look back on their lives and remember times when their father made a difference for them and their mom, too. I think most people, if not everyone, would really like to have a worldview that their parents influenced.

I tell people that are questioning becoming parents, if you become parents to children, it is your chance to leave a little bit of yourself. I’m a product of not only my parents, but their parents, their parents before them and before them and before them. It goes all the way back. Who we are today, there’s little pieces of all of that. Little pieces of all that that represents who we are through the eons of time that human beings have been around. 

To watch the full interview with Chris Carsten, please go here.

Main Photo: Chris Carsten in A Christmas Story, The Musical (Photo by Craig Schwartz Photography/Courtesy Center Theatre Group)

The post Chris Carsten And His Annual Christmas Story appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Lewis, Sayer and Shields formed Mischief Theatre in 2008. The Play That Goes Wrong was first presented with the name The Murder Before Christmas. The name was changed to suit the nature of the show. A year later Peter Pan Goes Wrong was introduced to the world.

A few days before opening night in Los Angeles, I spoke with the three men about the show, their approach to comedy and the value of failure. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview (including the moment where the interview went wrong), please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: James M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, is quoted as having said, “We are all of us failures, at least the best of us are.” Now it strikes me, having seen the BBC version of Peter Pan Goes Wrong, that Mischief Theater celebrates failure in its shows. So I’m wondering how failure inspires each one of you. 

Sayer: I never heard that quote. I wish I had because that’s a really good one. We could have been using that for ten years, I suppose. A huge part of our work is all about highlighting mistakes and celebrating them; celebrating the funniness of them and the vulnerabilities of these characters that we’ve made. I think failure is an intrinsic part of Mischief’s work. But I think the nice thing about this show is it’s about this ragtag team trying to put on Peter Pan and anything that could happen goes wrong. But at the end, actually, there’s a bit of a victory. The characters manage to support each other and get through it.

Shields: Failure is an intrinsic part of the creative process. I think you have to be ready to fail, willing to fail and willing to embrace failure at every step of the process in order to improve. That’s the only way anything succeeds. No one gets it right first time. And we’ve failed. We’ve probably failed as much as we’ve succeeded over the course of our lives. But every success has hopefully been improved by the previous failure. 

Lewis: You learn so much more from failing than from getting it right. If you get it right, that often is weird. I mean, if you sort of have a success with something or something goes well, you actually don’t necessarily learn a great deal.

Q: You’ve been doing this show for about 11 years at this point. Are there things that you’ve learned along the way with various productions of any one of your shows that has informed changes or improvements that you’ve made in the others?

Sayer: The main learning, I think, particularly with Goes Wrong shows, if you’re going to do a show that’s kind of related to another show, you want to make sure that you push the envelope a little further. We’ve always tried to make sure each show is bigger, more physically spectacular. The big learning is always to go back to the truth of the characters that we’ve created and back to the truth of the work that we’re doing and back to the fundamentals of what Mischief stands for.

Q: What are the physical challenges of getting this comedy right every night? 

Lewis: It’s definitely a very physical show. There’s no question. You do get a bit battered. This is certainly the most physical. There’s lots of running around, falling over, getting up. You’re physically tired, but the audience tends to carry you through. [They] are enjoying it and laughing and so that gives you a bit of adrenaline and you mosey on through the show. 

Shields: We’re all pretty heavily padded now where we wouldn’t necessarily have been when we started doing the show ten years ago. Now everyone’s got kneepads and shoulder pads and straps and ankle straps to keep us together because we’re in our thirties. And it’s not as easy as it used to be.

Sayer: I’ve not got any padding on because my costume is either very short shorts and a very skimpy t-shirt or essentially a kind of loose cotton bag. So there’s no way for me to have any padding. But you tend to feel it more after the show. Then in two days you realize, Oh, that’s damaged. Have I done that?

Q: How do you keep the comedy fresh, not just for the audience, but how do you keep it fresh for you as performers?

Sayer: I think that the comedy is kept fresh maybe in different ways. The first is the audience and what you get back from the audience that keeps it alive. I think the fact that we all genuinely find each other funny. We were doing a dress rehearsal the other day and I laughed quite a lot during the dress rehearsal and I think there was quite a lot of laughter in general. There’s a genuineness to it. We’re not just kind of, Oh my God, here we go again. 

Lewis: The characters are aware of the audience and they’re listening to the audience and as a technical comedy craft challenge means that it’s always slightly different. You’re constantly taking in data from the audience and that is adjusting and affecting your performance and everyone’s performance. You collectively are working together.

Q: How much corpsing (breaking character and laughing in a scene) is allowed or happens through a given run?

Shields: It depends on the character because there are a couple of characters in the show who their schtick is that they are not taking it seriously and they’re having a really good time and happy to just laugh. One character in particular, Max, is free to laugh whenever he wants. So the actor who plays him [Matthew Cavendish], if anything tickles him even slightly, he’ll just openly laugh on stage. Which makes it very difficult for everyone else because my character in particular is what we call no use clown. Which means I can never laugh. If I laugh, then my entire character is shattered because I can’t be having a good time at any point. He’s having the worst night his life. How often it happens? I’d say it’s pretty rare.

Q: In Peter Pan Peter says “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” British actor Edmund Gwenn, best known as Kris Kringle in the original film of Miracle on 34th Street, said on his deathbed, “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” How do you reconcile these two statements and how does this apply to the work you do?

Sayer: My experience of actors in comedy is comedy is quite a binary world. Either people laugh, and therefore it is a success, or they do not laugh and it is therefore a failure. I think some people really don’t like that because they see that as quite harsh. I think if you really love comedy, and it’s in your bones, you find it quite soothing because it helps you sculpt the show. I find comedy probably easier than the living bit.

Shields: I don’t know if comedy is harder than drama. It’s difficult. I think probably the reason that people say that is that comedy has the immediate feedback that drama doesn’t. If you’re doing comedy, even if you’re good at it, you have to be good at it 100% at a time. Every joke has to land because as soon as one joke doesn’t land, you’ve died. You’re constantly skating on razor thin ice and one mistake and you have died. It feels absolutely awful to tell a joke and have no one laugh. It doesn’t matter if you told a thousand jokes before that point. The one you’ll remember is the one where you died. You can do a drama, and if it doesn’t quite work, you didn’t quite move people in the way that you intended to, you’ll never really know for sure because there’s no immediate feedback. That’s probably what makes the difference. 

Q: But you wouldn’t have it any other way, would you?

Shields: Well, no, because the positive feedback when people laugh is instant gratification. That’s what we’re in for.

To watch the full interview with the creators of Peter Pan Goes Wrong, please go here.

Main Photo: Henry Lewis, Harry Kershaw, Henry Shields and Jonathan Sayer in Peter Pan Goes Wrong (Photo by Jeremy Daniel/Courtesy Center Theatre Group)

The post The Mischief Behind Making Peter Pan Go Wrong appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

13: THE MUSICAL – Netflix – Starts August 12^th

Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Bridges of Madison County) had the world premiere of his musical 13 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in 2006. The musical tells the story of a Evan Goldman who desperately wants the cool kids at his new school in Indiana to attend his Bar Mitzvah so he can avoid being forever labeled a geek.

Tamara Davis directed this film version that has a script by Robert Horn (Tootsie: The Musical). The cast includes Eli Golden, Gabriella Uhl, Debra Messing and Rhea Perlman.

I saw the musical in 2007 in Los Angeles and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

2:22 – A GHOST STORY – Ahmanson Theatre – Los Angeles – Now – December 4^th

We might as well start Halloween week with this supernatural thriller written by Danny Robins. It’s a simple premise: Jenny (Constance Wu) believes she hears footsteps coming from her baby’s room every morning at 2:22 AM. Her husband Sam (Finn Wittrock) doesn’t believe her. They invite Lauren (Anna Camp) and Ben (Adam Rothenberg) over for dinner and vow to wait up to see whether Jenny or Sam is correct.

Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a play if Sam is right, would it? 

2:22 – A Ghost Story earned rave reviews when it opened in London. This production is the first US production of the play. Matthew Dunster directs.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

DEATH OF A SALESMAN  – Hudson Theatre – New York City – Now – January 15^th STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

Arthur Miller’s classic play features an all-Black Loman family in this production from the Young Vic in London. Wendell Pierce (The Wire; Clemency) stars as Willy with Tony Award nominee Sharon D. Clarke (Caroline, or Change) as Linda. Khris Davis and McKinley Belcher III play sons Biff and Happy with Tony Award-winner André De Sheilds (Hadestown) as Willy’s brother Ben.

Miranda Cromwell, who co-directed the UK productions with Marianne Elliott, directs.

Ben Brantley, in his opening sentence of his New York Times review of the London production said, “The tired old man has had an unexpected transfusion. And he has seldom seemed more alive – or more doomed.” In other words, attention must be paid.

This is the most emotional production of Death of a Salesman we’ve ever seen.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

EVERYTHING FOR DAWN – All Arts – Now Available

Fifteen different composers and/or librettist have combined forces to create this 10-part opera mini-series. Dawn is a teenager dealing with the aftermath of her artist father’s suicide. Set in Detroit, the first three episodes take place in 1997 when Dawn her mother find a box of paintings. Episodes 4-7 go back two years prior and depict the father in a mental health facility. Episodes 8-10 take place in 2001 as Dawn’s father becomes widely acknowledge as a master of outsider art.

Clarice Assad, Jason Cady, Adrienne Danrich, Lauren D’Errico, Melissa Dunphy, Miguel Frasconi, Paul Kerekes, Pauline Kim Harris, Phil Kline, Krista Knight, Jerry Lieblich, Jerome A. Parker Kamala Sankaram, Aaron Siegel and Matthew Welch are the composers and lyricists.

Episodes 1-6 are already available. Episodes 7-8 get released on October 28^th and the final two episodes will be released on November 4^th.

There is no charge to watch Everything for Dawn which can be found on the ALL ARTS app or at AllArts.org. here.

INTO THE WOODS – St. James Theatre – New York City – Now – January 8^th STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

This often-produced musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine was such a hit at New York City Center’s Encores series that it was inevitable the show would transfer to Broadway…and it has and the reviews and ticket sales are proof that was a great idea.

If you don’t know the musical, multiple fairytales are all taking place in the same forest at the same time. We’re big fans of Act II where not everything is as happy as it first seems. Most people love the first act and don’t know what could happen in that second act. Ah…the surprise!

Lear deBessonet directs. The current cast includes Stephanie J. Block as the Baker’s Wife, Gavin Creel as Cinderella’s Price and the Wolf, Brian D’Arcy James as the Baker, Andy Karl as Rapunzel’s Prince (Joshua Henry returns to the role beginning November 24^th), Patina Miller as the Witch on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays with Montego Glover performing the role on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday and Krysta Rodriguez as Cinderella (Denée Benton takes over the role beginning on November 21^st.

Katy Geraghty practically steals the show as Little Red Riding Hood and Kennedy Kanagawa gives enormous life to the Milky White puppet.

Tony Award-winner Joaquina Kalukango (Paradise Square) will take over the role of The Witch beginning December 16th and remain with the show for the rest of the run.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

KIMBERLY AKIMBO – The Booth Theatre – New York City – Opening November 10^th

When this musical by David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori opened at the Atlantic Theater in December of last year, critics and audiences recognized immediately this was something special. 

Based on the play of the same name by Lindsay-Abaire, it tells the story of Kimberly Levaco  (Victoria Clark – Tony Award winner for The Light in the Piazzai) who is aging far faster than she is growing old. She seems to be north of sixty, but still is in high school.

As Jesse Green said in his New York Times review, “Kimberly Akimbo is realdy the rare example of a good play that has become an even better musical.”

Kimberly Akimbo will definitely be a priority on our next trip to New York City.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS – Westside Theatre Upstairs – New York City – Now running STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

Howard Ashman and Alan Mencken’s delightful musical about a man-eating plant gets the perfect revival in this production directed by Michael Mayer.

Currently starring as Seymour is Tony Award-winner Matt Doyle (Company). He just replaced Rob McClure who finished his run on November 13th. Lena Hall, Tony Award-winner for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, stars as Audrey. Andrew Call is her abusive boyfriend Oren Scrivello; Brad Oscar is Mushnik and Aaron Arnell Harrington is the voice of Audrey II.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable production. As Audrey, Hall has created a woman who isn’t as fragile as is traditionally depicted. She’s a tough-as-nails survivor with a vulnerable streak that is heartbreaking. We saw McClure in the show and thought he was perfect. Doyle will certainly put his own spin on the nebbish young man who provides sweet understanding. After all, Seymour IS Audrey’s man. But don’t feed the plants!

For tickets and more information, please go here.

A STRANGE LOOP – Lyceum Theatre, New York – Now – January 15^th  STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

The 2022 Tony Award for Best Musical and the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for drama went to Michael R. Jackson’s musical A Strange Loop. It’s an aptly named meta-musical about a gay Black man who’s writing a musical about a gay Black man who is writing a musical about…You get the picture.  

Stephen Brackett directs A Strange Loop. The ensemble features Antwayn Hopper, L Morgan Lee, John-Michael Lyles, James Jackson, Jr., John-Andrew Morrison, Jaquel Spivey and Jason Veasey.

This is a wholly original musical that challenges everything we imagine a Broadway musical to be. Jackson does it in all the best possible ways.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

DANIIL TRIFONOV RECITAL – Multiple Venues – November 10^th – December 7^th

Pianist Trifonov performs a solo piano recital featuring works by Tchaikovsky (Children’s Album); Robert Schumann (Fantasy in C Major); Mozart (Fantasia in C Minor), Ravel (Gaspard de la nuit) and Scriabin (Piano Sonata No. 5).

He’ll be at The Royal Conservatory in Toronto on December 2^nd; Shriver Hall in Baltimore on December 4^th  and Carnegie Hall in New York on December 7^th.

For tickets and more details, please click on each venue’s name.

Main Photo: Joshua Henry and Gavin Creel in Into the Woods (Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

The post BEST BETS STILL AVAILABLE – November 2022 appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Jud is the outsider in Oklahoma! He’s a ranch hand who is smitten with Laurey (Sasha Hutchings). But he makes her and everyone around him uncomfortable. Curly (Sean Grandillo) also has his eyes on Laurey and he keeps a watchful eye on Jud and will do anything to make sure he doesn’t end up with her.

Last week I spoke with Bannow about how this production of Oklahoma! is different, what it has to say and how we define what a good guy is in a musical. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

You’ve been on tour with Oklahoma! for quite some time. You also understudied the show in New York. Now that your journey is nearing its end, what do you know about Jud that would surprise your original conception of the character?

I’m lucky. I’ve been able to continue to mine it and discover things throughout the process. I’ve been struck recently just by how much antagonism he faces by doing so very little. This play is full of men pursuing women and there’s a lot of very misogynistic, dominating language that’s used throughout this play by all of the men in it. I’m struck more and more as I listen to the play every night how much of it is allowed for other characters in this play and how little of it is tolerated from from Jud, a.k.a the bad guy, and how little sense that makes. I’m struck by people’s reactions to the role and by people telling me that they’ve seen things that they never thought they’d see in the character because of the particular take on Jud. So that’s been really enlivening and helpful to hear as we’ve been going through the country.

We assume that Curly is the good guy in the show. After all, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Wilson and Alfred Drake have played that role. But is he truly the good guy? He over-zealously pursues Laurey and he makes a truly vile suggestion to Jud.

It is funny feeling the audience from the very get-go be like, Oh, that’s Curly – he should be with the girl. It’s funny to feel that assumption because all of his actions, if you just take them on as they are on paper, he’s a schmuck. He’s a horrible person. He’s giving Laurey a bunch of shit and he’s with another woman at the same time. He tells Jud to kill himself. He’s by no means a perfect gentleman. But for some reason there’s this ideal version of what a man, a western rough and tough man, should be. And Curly embodies that. So regardless of what he says or does, the audience applauds at the end when he and Laurey get together, because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Someone saw the show this week and sent me a text and was like, “It’s crazy how it’s such a radical idea for us as Americans to feel empathy for the outsider.” And that’s really why he is the, quote unquote, bad guy – simply because he’s the outsider in this community. And I think in this country, we hold very dear to our identity and our identity is made in part by deciding who is not in our community. 

I think that there’s a humanity to Jud that is central to our having empathy for him. What was your process of understanding that that empathy was there and then figuring out how best to get that across to audiences who may just assume that Curly’s the good guy?

I think that I have a natural inclination towards Jud. As an actor I’m drawn to outsiders. I’m drawn to anti-heroes. I’m drawn to people whose convictions are counter to the culture and community that they’re a part of. In this production, it’s funny, I don’t think Daniel and I ever had a real conversation about the inner workings of Jud. I just think that he saw in me, and I saw in in him, this kind of understanding that this human is as complex and as multidimensional as any great character. Neither one of us wanted to diminish him ever to being an antagonist or a villain or the foil to something else.

Every night there’s this moment in the play where I can feel the audience, if they’re truly listening, I can feel this energy shift where they click into the fact that this production isn’t going the way that they thought it would go. This character is going on a journey where they’re not being asked to laugh and point and kind of be afraid of him, but they’re actually locking into his inner workings and a bit of his fear and his hope and his anxiety. I think it really shifts the focus of the story of Oklahoma to being about this community and how they decide who is a part of it and who isn’t. It’s pretty clear by the end of this production that not everyone gets to join the club and Jud, unfortunately, gets kicked out in so many words. 

On Tony Sunday in 2019, on your Instagram account, you were asking do audiences celebrate the show for its radical approach? Amongst those questions is, “Is it really radical because it refuses to applaud the audience for coming to see it.” I feel like so much of theater now is placation and the audience is standing as if to say, “Wow, I made it through.” Can you elaborate from an actor’s point of view what you meant by that? 

I remember writing that and I remember feeling it. Feeling that this production is the first musical that I had ever seen where the ending wasn’t a kind of celebration of the audience. So much of musical theater, I feel, it’s always about the happy ending. It’s always about and now our story is complete. So it is a bit of placating the audience. Thank you so much for coming. Please buy the cast recording and tell your friends to come as well. They’ve got to see it.

When I experienced the ending of [Oklahoma!] I felt like I was being celebrated, but in a very different way. I feel like this musical at the end is challenging the audiences to receive it. The ending of this is no less engaging of the audience. In fact, I would say it’s probably more engaging than a typical musical. It’s just that the way that it engages the audience challenges them. It asks them to fully receive the images that we are presenting towards them. It’s amazing to see people’s faces because they’re not used to being acknowledged in that way at the end of a musical.

On that same Instagram post you asked a question that I want you to answer. “Are we nervous to have our musicals actually look at our audiences? Is that radical?” I’m assuming you have an answer to that question.

I think it is still radical because I think that any piece of art that truly invites its audience to question themselves, or their state of being, is a radical idea because people don’t like the questions and people don’t like to re-think what they assume they know. If you want to engage with the largest amount of people you’re going to produce something that can be easily digested by the largest amount of people. I think this is just true of musical theater. I think it’s true of any art in the capitalist society where you’re always thinking about marketability as much as you are artistic integrity.

Daniel Fish is a producer’s best dream and worst nightmare because he is going to make something that’s fully engaging. But he’s also never going to apologize for it. He’s not going to back down and he’s not going to water it down, either. I love that because I never know if an audience is going to embrace this musical or hate it because what he’s doing is so personal that there’s no way to know how you’re going to react to it until you see it. I truly think what he’s doing through this classic American musical is probing into personal questions. As a result, people are having to respond to it personally. 

Oscar Hammerstein II said, “If you really believe in the brotherhood of man and you want to come into its fold, you’ve got to let everyone else in, too.” It seems like he could have said that about Oklahoma!

If you’re going to celebrate this show as a kind of celebration of identity, then you have to, when you see the show, accept the fact that you’re celebrating this community that is not embracing the fellow brotherhood of man, right? Fully embracing that is acknowledging the fact that we are selective and exclusive and that’s defined our identity. Whether it’s Irish immigrants or Italian immigrants or African-Americans or Hispanics or Asian Americans, the rate of exclusion is just impressive, right? And it’s always changing.

What that tells me is that it’s not actually about who you’re excluding, it’s the act of exclusion. You’re now accepted. Well, now they’re not. It’s this need to push someone away because it’s intrinsically tied to our sense of self as a country. And so if we’re going from what Hammerstein said, then I think this musical is a beautiful way to have many, many, people engage with the truth that when territories become states, they have to push people out.

To see the full interview with Christopher Bannow, please go here.

Oklahoma!, which won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, continues at the Ahmanson Theatre through October 16th. The US tour concludes in Tempe, AZ at ASU Gammage from October 18th – October 23rd.

Photo: Portrait of Christopher Bannow by and courtesy of Emily Crombez

The post Chris Bannow: Is “Jud” in “Oklahoma!” the Bad Guy? appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

“I was working on The Prom and Moulin Rouge at the same time,” said producer Bill Damaschke. “They were very challenging for totally different reasons. They had different dynamics around them. One being totally original and one being something that everyone thought should be on stage.” Moulin Rouge was obviously based on the Baz Luhrmann film and The Prom only became a film after it had played on Broadway. Damaschke had the responsibility of getting two very musicals into shape where they could be viable on stage.

Ironically both The Prom and Moulin Rouge The Musical are touring America right now. Both happen to be in Los Angeles. The Prom opens tonight at the Ahmanson Theatre and Moulin Rouge continues at the Pantages.

Last week I spoke with Damaschke about both shows and his experiences on them. But first some details.

The Prom was nominated for seven Tony Awards. While it didn’t win any, it was the recipient of the Drama Desk Award for Best Musical. It was also a Critic’s Pick in the New York Times. The show closed after 309 performances.

Moulin Rouge was nominated for 14 Tony Awards and won ten including Best Musical. It was also a Critic’s Pick in the New York Times. The show is still running in New York.

This is a conversation about some hard truths, the freedom of creating new shows, the beauty of success and Damaschke’s unbridled love of the material he choses. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To watch the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

You work in feature film animation (Shark Tale, Kung Fu Panda) and theater (The Lehman Trilogy, The Ferryman). What does theater offer you that working in film does not?

I guess the thrill in both of them is seeing the germ of something, the tiny little morsel that you start with. Let’s make a show about this girl who gets denied the ability to go to her prom. Or let’s make a show called Moulin Rouge inspired by Baz’s film, or let’s make this animated film. Seeing that little morsel from the beginning and nurturing it – the thrill of that is the same in both.

I think where like the thrill of live theater is you can talk about and think about and consider all the stuff in the world you want to do, but at 7:00 the actors are going to come in, they have to warm up and they’re going to go on stage. There is a real finality to it and an urgency to it.

What was the morsel that inspired you about The Prom?

Casey Nicholaw [director of The Prom and Book of Mormon] came to us and said, “I heard this amazing idea from Jack Viertel” [SVP at Jujamcyn Theaters.] Which was, wouldn’t it be funny if a bunch of somewhat self-serving grand Broadway stars think they’re going to use their celebrity to help this girl get her prom back on?

I love stories about outsiders. The great thing about The Prom is that there’s two sets of outsiders. There’s a girl at the end of the story and her girlfriend and they’re outsiders in their community. Then there’s the New York brash people who think they know everything; the liberal New Yorkers coming to this small town to teach them a lesson. Of course, they learn something when they get there. So I love that juxtaposition and I love stories where not everyone’s right and not everyone’s wrong.

As somebody who has your foot in both film and in theater, when you look at the reviews that The Prom got on stage versus the reviews that The Prom got on Netflix, they were very different responses. I don’t know why that is, but I do have a theory that I want to run by you. This negates the economics of filmmaking because I know that you have to have the talent you had in the movie to get the movie made in the first place. But is there something about seeing actors we aren’t as familiar with play superstars or play even run-of-the-mill characters on Broadway versus seeing big stars that come with their own baggage that then compound what our expectations or even how we define who a character might be?

I don’t know that I have the objectivity to analyze it because I love the show and I love the movie and I love them for very different reasons. So many more people watched The Prom and experienced that story because of Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman. I think there’s just a different energy when you enter a theater to see a musical. I think when you’re watching a musical on a TV screen or in a movie theater you’re more passive. If you go to see a show in the theater and it is people that are great at what they do, whether you know them as a star or a Broadway star, you can just really go into the story in a different way.

We all know how powerful The New York Times is. If you get a bad review the paper has entirely too much power and it can completely sink a show. The Prom was a Critic’s Pick. Yet the rave from the New York Times wasn’t enough to keep it running on Broadway. Why do you think that dichotomy exists?

Obviously getting a great review from The Times is helpful. It’s a show that I would have loved to have seen just being an audience member. It has absolute, rabid fans who love it and there’s an audience for it. I think that expanding that to a much broader group of people who are going to get over what the entry line is – it’s about a lesbian. That in itself actually maybe limits your audience right there.

Some people think it’s not for them. What I have found over time is that people who come to it go, “Oh, I had no idea it was going to be this.” The economics of Broadway and keeping Broadway shows running and who comes and all that, it’s such a machine in a way. There is just a limited group of tourists and there are things that they know are going to be great and then they have x number of slots available to see things that they might take a chance on. We didn’t come in with the heat of an out-of-town [tryout.] We didn’t come in with a big title. We didn’t come in with a movie title behind our name. 

It seems as though Broadway is becoming more and more about pre-sold concepts and that original ideas get less attention. Ironically, we’re talking about this this just months after A Strange Loop wins the Tony Award. As a producer, how do you figure out what you think has the best chance of working and when do you roll the dice on something that isn’t a known entity?

I feel you’re right to say that in some ways what’s happened with Broadway – and there’s a million reasons for it – is similar to what happened in the movie business, especially the theatrical movie business. Now you have either big giant event-branded things or family [films] still work very, very well. Or you have tiny little things that come through Sundance or Toronto that are indie and then become Oscar contenders.

This year was a great example: it was MJ versus A Strange Loop. Both beautiful, amazing, well-crafted, completely artistic shows in totally different ways. It was the big giant Michael Jackson show and this thing that was off-Broadway and came in. We see that all the time. It’s Something Rotten versus Fun Home. Next year it will be Kimberly Akimbo versus whatever the new thing is.

If we put all of our love and heart and soul into it, maybe someone will want it when we’re done with it. But at least we’ll all have had this incredible time together working on it. I put the same kind of love and care into The Prom as we did in Moulin Rouge as I do into my animated movies. Nobody knows what works.

I want to conclude by asking you about something that Hal Prince said, probably the greatest Broadway producer in my lifetime. He said, “The idea is to work and to experiment. Some things will be creatively successful. Some things will succeed at the box office and some things will only, which is the biggest only, teach you things that see the future, and they’re probably as valuable as any of your successes.” What did The Prom and Moulin Rouge teach you? 

In very different ways both of them have taught me to follow my heart and my gut and and also to choose to work with amazing and incredible people that will challenge you, will be amazing partners, will be incredible collaborators, will push you in every single way. I very much live by the school of work with people who are way better than you are. On both The Prom and Moulin Rouge the collaborators were exceptional people. I really believed in both of those projects.

I believe in The Prom. I didn’t know if it was going to be commercial. I believed in Moulin Rouge, even though I think in retrospect it was like just a layup. It was as hard for us to raise the money for Moulin Rouge as it was to raise the money for The Prom. What it came down to was do I believe in this material and do I believe in these people? Can I see myself spending the next five or ten years of my life caring about this? If the answer to all three of that is yes, then go for it.

You can watch the full interview with Bill Damaschke here.

For more on Moulin Rouge, see our interview with actress Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer here.

For upcoming tour dates for The Prom, please go here. For upcoming tour dates for Moulin Rouge please go here.

Main Photo: The cast of the touring company of The Prom (Photo by Deen van Meer/Courtesy Center Theatre Group)

The post Producer Bill Damaschke: A Tale of Two Musicals appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

This evening, June 12th, Beale won a Tony Award for his performance. Here we revisit our interview with him about the many roles he and his fellow cast-mates play in The Lehman Trilogy (which also won the Tony Award for Best Play and Best Director.)

Beale is part of a cast of three actors (Adam Godley and Howard W. Overshown) who tell and act out the rise and fall of the Lehman family from the moment they first arrive in the United States in 1844 through to the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2007. It’s absolutely riveting and amongst the best three hours one can spend in a theatre. Each actor takes on literally dozens of roles throughout the play.

The Lehman Trilogy was written by Stefano Massini and adapted by Ben Powers. Sam Mendes directed the show which debuted at The National Theatre in London.

The US premiere took place at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City and the show recently concluded a Broadway run which will make it eligible for Tony Award consideration. Be prepared for multiple nominations for this play.

Though it all seems effortless now, Beale, in a recent phone conversation, said it wasn’t always that way.

“You should have seen the first performances, they weren’t effortless. Adam and I were joking about the first four performances. I don’t even remember them they were so traumatic. I remember the feeling before the first night and we didn’t know what sort of a beast we had. And the sheer three hour-long effort of it was very, very daunting.”

Beale, who is considered one of the finest stage actors of our time, has received 10 Olivier nominations and has three wins. He has two BAFTA Awards and is so acknowledged for his work he was awarded a Knighthood in 2019. That doesn’t mean he takes himself too seriously.

“I’m a slightly stocky, middle-aged Englishman with a beard and I’m now pretending to be all sorts of different things just because I say so, rather than with any other help. And that’s quite fun. It’s not about emotional expression or effort. It’s about just keeping the mind focused. If you make a mistake, and I don’t think we’ve ever done a perfect performance actually, but if you make a mistake, you just have to forget it and move very quickly on.”

Though Beale speaks of bedtime stories and pretending, The Lehman Trilogy is a quite serious look at the American Dream.

“It’s about the pitfalls of the American Dream as much is about the the achievements of the American Dream. What was intriguing about doing the play, and especially doing the play in the New York, of course, in the city where the evidence of what they did is around you. I do remember going to see the Lehman wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and seeing the art collection and thinking they touched these. Their pictures are up on the wall. This is part of the fabric of the literal bricks and mortar of this city.”

Though the business completely fell apart with greed and avarice coursing through the veins of those who inherited or ran the company, Beale feels it is not his job to pass judgement on the characters or to make a statement about what they did.

“One of my characters has a line where he says ‘No one. No one outside the family would ever fully understand what we’ve done and why we did it.’ And it’s always stuck in my head that phrase. The sheer ambition and the sheer imagination of their business activities is sort of extraordinary isn’t it?“

However, when asked how much is enough, it was then that Beale considered the other side of the equation.

“At the same time, you know, you have to wonder about how much money you need, among other things. How many zeros will satisfy. It does make you think about your own desire for money or need for money. I mean, how much is regarded as a feasible amount? How much becomes no longer really morally right.”

The Lehman Trilogy has been a part of Beale’s life for four years (albeit with a year-and-a-half interruption by the pandemic.) When asked how his relationship to the play has evolved over time it became clear it wasn’t something he’d previously contemplated.

“That’s a very interesting question. Funnily enough on the last two days I suddenly realized I was just sort of repeating stuff without thinking about it. So I’ve started to give myself a challenge to try and make hopefully almost imperceptible changes to the way I did them. For instance, there’s an Irish maid who greets Emanuel when he’s courting his wife, Pauline. She’s got two lines and sometimes I’m just doing it automatically. I wanted to reassess what her attitude to to her little job was in that particular scene, to how excited she was, how shy she was, how she was speaking. It’s literally two lines.”

He then took a moment and pondered some of the other characters he plays on stage each night.

“I think Philip has become tougher. He is the son of Emanuel who takes the company through the 19th century through to the railways and the Panama Canal. I think he’s become harder. But, of course, his relationship with his father and his son has become a little bit more hurtful. He is hurt by them more than he used to be. So tiny little changes of who the person is.”

When the engagement at the Ahmanson Theatre ends Beale will bid adieu to the play and his many roles. As much as he’s worked on the play and enjoyed it, he isn’t sorry to say goodbye.

“I’m only sorry in the sense I’ve done it a lot now. It’s time to go and I’m fairly steely about plays. I’ve only ever really once thought I couldn’t do a play enough and that was the production of The Seagull I did many, many years ago. I say goodbye and close the door and on really.”

Beale, who is a fan of classical music, hosted Sacred Music on television in England. He made a comment on one of the episodes about what he could glean from a portrait of the composer Johannes Brahms and his work just by looking at the portrait. We finished our conversation by my asking what people could learn about him by looking at his eyes in a photo from the end of this production.

“Of course, it’s not for me to answer, is it? It’s very easy to jump to judgment. We have to make assumptions about about rich people, I suppose, or capitalism or something. And it’s easy to be unsympathetic. I hope they would see something that was sympathetic.”

Main photo: Simon Russell Beale in The Lehman Trilogy (Photo by Craig Schwartz/Courtesy Center Theatre Group)

The post The Many Faces of Actor Simon Russell Beale TONY WINNER!!! appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

My top pick is the world premiere of Death by Tyshawn Sorey. Los Angeles Opera is giving the work its debut through their digital shorts program. The work will begin streaming on Friday, February 19th at 11:00 AM.

Those interested in modern dance, ballet, jazz, classical music, plays and musicals will also have plenty to watch his weekend.

Here are my Best Bets: February 19th – February 21st:

DANCE: Evidence – Ronald K. Brown – The Joyce Theatre – Now – March 4th

In 1985 Ronald K. Brown formed a new company called Evidence. On the occasion of its 35 anniversary, the Joyce Theatre is streaming a program of six works for solo dancers and couples. Included in the program are For You, which served as a tribute to Stephanie Reinhart, the late co-creator of the American Dance Festival; Grace, a solo that put Brown on the map when it was performed by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre; March, a duet set to a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Mercy set to music by Meshell Ndegeocello; Palo y Machete, from One Shot, which was inspired by photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris and She is Here.

Tickets are $25 per household and allow for on-demand streaming through March 4th.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Soundwalk – Multiple Locations – Now Available

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid has created a musical landscape to accompany walks through many public parks and spaces in some of America’s cities. Her goal, as stated on the website, is to “inspire us and make us feel connected to something larger than ourselves. It is meant to serve as artistic nourishment – a place to recharge, reconnect, and re-energize.”

You download an app, put on your headphones and talk a walk through designated areas and listen to the music she’s created. Right now it is only available in Los Angeles and New York, but additional cities will be added throughout the year.

For Los Angeles, presented in association with CAP UCLA, The Kronos Quartet performs the music to accompany walks through Griffith Park as does the Soundwalk Ensemble. For New York, presented in association with the New York Philharmonic, musicians from the orchestra perform the music to accompany walks through Central Park. The Soundwalk Ensemble, members of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and Poole and the Gang also perform.

There is no charge to download the app and the Soundwalk experience will remain active into 2023. Additional locations roll out beginning in April.

JAZZ: Kenny Barron – SFJAZZ – February 19th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

In this fall of 2018 concert, legendary jazz pianist Kenny Barron is joined by violinist Regina Carter, trumpeter Eddie Henderson and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington. Any one of them would be compelling, having them perform with Barron will offer great music.

Barron is an 11-time Grammy Award nominee (how is it possible he’s never won one?) whose career began as a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s quartet. His recording career began in 1967 and his most recent release was 2020’s Without Deception with bassist Dave Holland.

Tickets are $5 (which allows for a one-month digital subscription) or $60 (which allows for a 12-month digital subscription). There is only the one showing on Friday.

DANCE: Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet – Ahmanson Theatre – February 19th – February 21st

Ivo Váňa-Psota was the first choreographer of a ballet of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It was set to the music by Sergei Prokofiev. The work had its world premiere in 1938.

In 2019 Matthew Bourne presented to the world his new Romeo and Juliet ballet, also set to Prokofiev’s music as interpreted by composer Terry Davies.

Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles is making the ballet available for rent this weekend only. Unlike other Bourne productions, Romeo and Juliet has never been performed in Los Angeles. Cordelia Braithwaite dances the role of Juliet and Paris Fitzpatrick dances the role of Romeo.

There are seven available performances this weekend. On Friday at 5:00 PM PST and 8:00 PM PST; Saturday at 2:00 PM PST, 5:00 PM PST and 8:00 PM PST and Sunday at 1:00 PM PST and 6:30 PM PST. Tickets are $10.

*TOP PICK* OPERA: Death – LA Opera – February 19th – May 4th

This is our third week in a row with Tyshawn Sorey on our list of best bets. This week his work Death will have its world premiere from LA Opera. Sorey sets the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar to music for solo voice and piano.

Dunbar is considered America’s first great Black poet. Sorey uses his poem of the same name from Dunbar’s 1903 collection Lyrics of Love and Laughter.

Performing Death are mezzo-soprano Amanda Lynn Bottoms and pianist Howard Watkins. Nadia Hallgren (Becoming) directed the film.

Sorey is obviously exploding with his inventive mix of jazz, classical and experimental music styles. With Save the Boys and Death, 2021 is clearly turning out to already be a remarkable year for the 40-year-old who was awarded a MacArthur “Genius Grant” in 2017.

There is no charge to watch Death, but you do need to register with LA Opera.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Michelle Cann plays Florence Price – Philadelphia Orchestra – February 19th – February 25th

June 15, 1933 was a pivotal day in the life of composer Florence Price. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony in E Minor. This marked the first time the work of a Black woman had her composition performed by a major orchestra in America.

The other important date happened well after Price had passed away. In 2009 a couple, while renovating a house they purchased in Illinois, came across manuscripts, books and other writings by Price. More than half of the works she composed were found. The rediscovery of Price had begun.

Pianist Michelle Cann, who has made Price’s Concerto in One Movement a regular part of her repertoire, joins The Philadelphia Orchestra and music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, for a performance of the work in a film available through February 25th. They are using the original orchestration of the concerto. The website indicates this may be the first time since the 1930s that this orchestration has been performed.

Also on the program are Rossini’s Overture to La scala di seta and Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 (“Tragic”).

Tickets are $17.

DANCE: New Bach – Dance Theatre of Harlem – February 20th – February 27th

The second half of Dance Theatre of Harlem’s Winter 2021 Virtual Ballet Series takes place on Saturday with New Bach which will be posted on their YouTube channel on Saturday.

Robert Garland created New Bach which had its world premiere in 2001 just after the 9/11 tragedy. Anna Kisselgoff, in her New York Times review, said of the work upon its premiere (with specific names from that performance): “Mr. Garland has used the Balanchine model in the best sense in New Bach,’ and alludes to the jazzy syncopation of the Bach-Balanchine masterpiece Concerto Barocco. Bach’s Violin Concerto in A minor, (conducted here by Joseph E. Fields with Deborah Wong as the violin soloist), has impelled him into formal patterns studded with occasional pelvis swivels, limp arms descending from rotating shoulders and wiggles in plié. Nothing is overdone, however, as four couples are in frequent interplay with the leads — Donald Williams, wittily assertive in a noble style, and Tanya Wideman-Davis, eye-riveting in her robust but refined classical silhouette.”

There is no charge to watch New Bach.

OPERA: Puccini’s La Rondine – San Francisco Opera – February 20th – February 21st

Conducted by Ion Marin; starring Angela Gheorghiu, Gerard Powers, Anna Christy and Misha Didyk. This Nicolas Joël production is from the 2007-2008 season.

Puccini’s La Rondine had its world premiere in Monaco in 1917. The libretto, based on a libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and Heinz Reichert, was written by Giuseppe Adami.

Multiple people collide in this opera about love. Magda is Rombaldo’s kept mistress. While entertaining friends, including the poet Prunier, she realizes how much she misses being in love. Prunier is in love with Lisette, who is Magda’s maid. A young man enters their group, Ruggero, who falls in love with Magda. Could he possibly provide the true love she so desperately desires? Who will end with whom and will they all live happily ever after?

This production marked Gheorghiu’s debut with San Francisco Opera. Joshua Kosman, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, said, “Gheorghiu’s company debut is long overdue, but her performance in the signature role of Magda was worth the wait. Her tone was strong but tender, with an irresistible blend of earthiness and purity, and when she lofted the high notes of “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta,” her breath control and flawless intonation seemed to make time stand still.”

JAZZ: Jason Marsalis and the K Love Experience – Snug Harbor (on Stage it) – February 21st – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

You know Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, the late Ellis Marsalis and perhaps even Delfeayo Marsalis. But do you also know drummer/vibraphonist Jason Marsalis? If not, Sunday’s performance from New Orleans’ Snug Harbor will give you a great opportunity to hear the youngest of the Marsalis brothers.

This concert will feature music with Afro-Cuban, funk, samba, reggae coursing through its veins. This won’t just be music to sit and listen to, you’ll want to get up and dance.

Tickets are $15.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Daniil Trifonov Recital – Shriver Hall – February 21st – 5:30 PM EST/2:30 PM PST

Are you tired of me constantly having a recital by pianist Daniil Trifonov on my best bets? I hope not, because there’s a reason his performances regularly appear on my list, he’s that good.

This performance, filmed at New York’s 92nd Street Y, finds Trifonov performing Szymanowski’s Sonata No. 3, Op. 36 and Debussy’s Pour le piano.

He concludes with Brahms’ Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5.

Tickets are $15 and allow for on-demand streaming through February 28th.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL MUSIC: Bang on a Can Marathon #5 – February 21st – 1:00 PM EST/10:00 AM PST

Fans of contemporary classical music will not want to miss this Sunday’s Bang on a Can Marathon. All you have to do is look at the line-up:

Hour 1: Jakhongir Shukur’s Potter’s Wheel performed by Robert Black; Jennifer Walshe performing her Happiness Starts Right Now; Maria Huld Markan Sigfusdottir’s Pending, performed by Chi-chi Nwanoku and a new work by Amir Elsaffar performed by Ken Thomson

Hour 2: A new work by Gregory Spears performed by David Byrd-Marrow; a new work by Kristina Wolfe performed by Molly Barth; Gabriel Kahane’s Hollywood & Vine performed by Arlen Hlusko and a new work written and performed by Bora Yoon with video by R. Luke Dubois

Hour 3: Matthew Shipp performs his Spaceman’s Blues; Joel Thompson’s Supplication and Compensation performed by Anthony Roth Costanzo; Rohan Chander’s △ or The Tragedy of Hikkomori Loveless from FINAL//FANTASY performed by Vicky Chow and a new work written and performed by David Cossin.

HOUR 4: Eve Beglarian’s A Solemn Shyness performed by Lara Downes; a new work written and performed by Ingrid Laubrock; Molly Herron’s Canon No. 4 performed by Maya Stone and a new work by Alvin Lucier performed by Mark Stewart.

There is no charge to watch the marathon, but donations are encouraged.

OPERA: Sole e Amore – Lyric Opera of Chicago – Begins February 21st – 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Fans of Italian opera will want to check out Sole e Amore which will feature arias by Bellini, Donizetti, Mascagni, Puccini, Rossini and Verdi. Members of the Ryan Opera Center Ensemble will be performing.

They include baritones Leroy Davis and Ricardo José Rivera; bass Anthony Reed; bass-baritone David Weigel; mezzo-sopranos Katherine Beck, Katherine DeYoung, and Kathleen Felty; sopranos Maria Novella Malfatti and Denis Vélez; tenors Martin Luther Clark and Lunga Eric Hallam and pianist Chris Reynolds.

Enrique Mazzola, who will become the Lyric’s music director in the 2021-2022 season, curated the program and will also play piano for much of the recital.

The program is free and will be available on the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s YouTube channel.

PLAYS/MUSICALS: TruSpeak…Hear Our Voices – February 21st – 5:00 PM EST/2:00 PM PST

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) has assembled a very impressive line-up for their gala event, TruSpeak…Hear Our Voices on Sunday.

Maggie Baird, Brendan Bradley, Brenda Braxton (Smokey Joe’s Cafe), Jim Brochu (The Big Voice: God or Merman?), Nick Cearley (one half of The Skivvies), Robert Cuccioli (Irish Rep’s A Touch of the Poet), Andrew Lynn Green, Ann Harada (Avenue Q), Dickie Hearts (Grace and Frankie), Cady Huffman (Tony Award-winner The Producers), Crystal Kellogg (School of Rock), Will Mader, Lauren Molina (the other half of The Skivvies), Jill Paice (An American in Paris), Tonya Pinkins (Caroline, or Change), Jana Robbins (Gypsy), Dominique Sharpton, Haley Swindal, Regina Taylor (I’ll Fly Away), Crystal Tigney and Tatiana Wechsler are all participated.

The gala will feature monologues, plays and an online musical.

TRU is a non-profit that helps in the development of new theatre companies and new works.

Tickets are $55 with VIP tickets also available (this is a fundraiser after all) that will include virtual meet-and-greet opportunities.

BROADWAY/CABARET: Santino Fontana with Seth Rudetsky – February 21st: 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

One of my favorite movies of all time is Tootsie. When the musical was announced Santino Fontana was cast in the role of Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels. (If you don’t know the movie, please do yourself a favor and watch it.) I purchased a ticket to see the show only to find out Fontana was out after the birth of his daughter. I held onto my ticket in hopes that I could see Fontana’s Tony Award-winning performance, but sadly the show closed before I had a chance to do so.

Luckily we can all see how talented he is when he joins Seth Rudetsky for this weekend’s concert. He’ll share music and stories from his career that has included being Prince Topher in Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella and Tony in Billy Elliot. Filmgoers will recognize him as the voice of Prince Hans in Frozen.

If you are unable to watch the live performance on Sunday, there is an encore showing of the concert on Monday, February 22nd at 3:00 PM EST/12:00 PM PST.

That is my list of my Best Bets: February 19th – February 21st. But before I go, I have a few reminders:

The Metropolitan Opera’s weeklong look at the work of Franco Zeffirelli concludes with the first-ever streaming of his 1989-1990 season production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni on Friday; the first-ever streaming of his 1996-1997 season production of Bizet’s Carmen on Saturday and concludes with the 2009-2010 revival of his 1987 staging of Puccini’s Turandot on Sunday.

Irish Repertory Theatre’s @Home Winter Festival continues this weekend. There are five different productions available for viewing. You can find out details here.

Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Icons on Inspiration with Julie Andrews, Common, Katy Perry, Yuja Wang and more is still available for free streaming (though donations are encouraged)

There you have it. The complete list of Best Bets: February 19th – February 21st. I hope you enjoy the culture, you enjoy the weekend and for those of you struggling with the aftermath of the winter storms this week, I’m sending you my best.

Main Photo: Tyshawn Sorey in a still from Death (Courtesy LA Opera)

The post Best Bets: February 19th – February 21st appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

BREAKING NEWS: Disney’s musical Frozen has closed on Broadway.

American Ballet Theatre has canceled their 2020 Season at the Metropolitan Opera. The shows included are ABT Then and Now, the New York premiere of Of Love and Rage, as well as productions of La Bayadère, Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Jane Eyre and Swan Lake.

Antaeus Theatre Company has canceled all remaining performances of Measure for Measure and their Classic Sundays reading of The Roaring Girl. 

Bob Baker Marionette Theatre has announced postponement of all scheduled performances and events. No tentative re-opening date has been provided.

Boston Court Pasadena has postponed all performances through May 27th.

Their production of Assassins been rescheduled for September 10th – October 18th

The Broad Stage has announced the suspension of all remaining performances in their 2019-2020 season.

Mnozil Brass on March 26th.

Hiromi: Solo on March 28th

Red Hen Press: New Traditions on March 29th

National Geographic Live: Hidden Wild: Secrets of the Everglades on April 9th and 10th

Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap on April 11th.

Dance for All on April 13th

USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance April 17th – April 19th

Beethoven, Bagels & Banter on April 19th

Angel’s Bone (co-presented with LA Opera Off Grand) May 1st – May 3rd

Diana Damrau & Nicolas Testé on May 16th

Lynn Harrell, cellist on May 17th

*Broadway in Hollywood has announced the cancellation of SpongeBob Musical at The Dolby Theatre.

The Illusionists, scheduled to play April 14th – April 19th at the Dolby Theatre has been rescheduled for January 12th – January 17th.

The tour of Mean Girls, scheduled to play the Dolby Theatre April 28th – June 7th, 2020 will be rescheduled.

The tour of My Fair Lady, scheduled to play the Dolby Theatre June 12th – July 5th will be rescheduled.

The tour of The Band’s Visit, scheduled to play at the Dolby Theatre July 7th – July 26th, has been suspended.

*The Cher Show is postponing its tour until 2021. Not official announcement yet, but this may impact the Spring 2021 booking at the Dolby Theatre.

*All Broadway Shows in New York have been suspended through September 6th.

Hangmen, which had gone into previews, will not re-open. A revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf will not re-open.

Beetlejuice, which was set to close at the Winter Garden on June 6th, is now officially closed. Though a 2021 tour is planned, there are still discussions of moving the show to another theatre.

*Disney’s musical Frozen has officially closed. It is the first long-running show to close as a result of the pandemic. The official closing day is March 11th, the last day of performances before Broadway suspended all performances. The show had 26 previews and 825 performances.

CAP UCLA has announced the suspension of the remainder of the 2019-2020 season.

Center Theatre Group has announced that all remaining shows in the 2019-2020 season have been postponed. This includes 1776 scheduled at the Ahmanson Theatre, King James at the Mark Taper Forum and Sakina’s Restaurant at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

They join the previously announced postponements of Once on This Island, The Antipodes and the annual Block party.

As it relates to Once on This Island, CTG is working on rescheduling the show. Producers have canceled this show’s tour, but the possibility of a reduced tour post-Coronavirus is being explored.

Cirque du Soleil has announced the cancellation of all performances of Volta scheduled at the Orange County Fair and Events Center in Costa Mesa.

Colburn School has canceled all performances and events through April 12.

East West Players has announced a postponement of the entire run of Assassins. They have also announced postponement of the 54th Anniversary Visionary Awards Gala.

The Echo Theater Company is canceling performances of Poor Clare, scheduled to open March 14, through the end of March. Performances resume April 3. 

*The Ford Theatres summer 2020 season has been canceled.

The Fountain Theatre has suspended the world premiere of Human Interest Story. The April 25 Los Angeles premiere of If I Forget has been postponed to later date yet to be determined. 

Geffen Playhouse has announced the following:

Bernhardt/Hamlet, scheduled to begin previews on April 7th, has been canceled.

Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center has announced the cancellation of the Pina Bausch’s Palermo Palermo as Tantztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch canceled their tour.

Malpaso Dance Company has canceled its spring tour of the United States. Therefore the engagement at the Ahmanson Theatre on May 15th – May 17th has been canceled.

Goodspeed Musicals has postponed their April production of South Pacific. Their fall production of Candide has been canceled.

*The Hollywood Bowl 2020 season has been canceled.

The Industry’s Sweet Land has canceled all remaining performances. They will be offering a filmed version being streamed starting March 23rd.

Laguna Playhouse has made the following announcements:

Hershey Felder’s Monsieur Chopin, originally scheduled for April, has been moved to October of this year.

Rocky Mountain High, a Tribute to John Denver has been rescheduled to January 7th – January 10th of 2021.

They are trying to reschedule Ann sometime in the coming year.

The world premiere of To Sir, With Love, has been canceled.

The La Jolla Playhouse has announced that all performances by or at La Jolla Music Society, La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego Opera and San Diego Symphony will be canceled and/or postponed through the end of March 2020

La Mirada Theatre has announced postponement of all shows through May 10th.

The following shows have been rescheduled:

The Sound of Music will play May 15th to June 7th.

Mamma Mia will play June 12th to July 5th.

They will be rescheduling the following shows:

Bossa Nova Wave (originally scheduled for April 3)

Classic Albums Live – Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours (originally scheduled for April 4)

Circus Science Spectacular (originally scheduled for April 5)

The Center of the Universe (originally scheduled for April 9)

The Brubeck Brothers (originally scheduled for May 12)

La Mirada Symphony (originally scheduled for May 17)

Dance, Dance, Dance! (originally scheduled for May 22)

Sol de Mexico (originally scheduled for June 27)

*LA Opera has canceled the final performance of Roberto Devereux scheduled for March 14th.

Angel’s Bone, scheduled to be performed May 1st – May 3rd, has been canceled as The Broad Stage canceled their remaining events for the 2019-2020 season.

Pelléas and Mélisande, scheduled for May 2nd – May 23rd, has been canceled.

Rodelinda, scheduled for May 8th, has been canceled.

*The Marriage of Figaro, scheduled for May 6th – May 28th, has been canceled.

*Saturday Mornings at the Opera, scheduled for June 6th, has been canceled.

*Great Opera Choruses, scheduled for June 7th at The Soraya, has been canceled.

Lincoln Center in New York has announced that the musical Flying Over Sunset has been moved to the fall as has the opera Intimate Apparel. Both were previously scheduled to open this spring.

Long Beach Opera has postponed until next season its production of The Lighthouse.

*Their planned productions of Billy the Kid (scheduled for May 3rd – May 10th) and Frida (scheduled for June 20th – June 28th) have been canceled.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra has announced postponement of this weekend’s concert, Border Crossings, scheduled for March 12th at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica and on March 13th at The Huntington.

They have also announced cancellation of the Ravel, Strauss + Contreras concerts on March 28th and 29th.

Beethoven + Mendelssohn scheduled for April 30th and May 1st has been canceled.

Sheku plus Eroica scheduled at multiple venues for May 15th – May 18th, has been canceled.

The Los Angeles LGBT Center is postponing its production of Hair that was scheduled to open on March 27th.

Los Angeles Master Chorale has announced the following cancellations:

The Fauré Requiem performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall on March 28th and 29th have been canceled.

The performance of Lagrime di San Pietro at the Musco Center for the Arts at Chapman University on March 19th has been canceled.

Come Away to the Skies: A Celebration of Alice Parker, scheduled for May 17th, has been canceled.

Los Angeles Philharmonic has announced the cancellation of all performances for the rest of the season at Walt Disney Concert Hall. (All concerts through June 6th.)

Manhattan Theatre Club has postponed their planned revival of How I Learned to Drive until next season.

MCC Theatre in New York has announced the All The Natalie Portmans played its final performance yesterday. Hollywood Dreams, which was to have begun previews next week, will be rescheduled.

They also announced that their Miscast 20 gala has been rescheduled from April 6th to June 15th

The Metropolitan Opera has canceled all performances for the rest of this season. This includes all scheduled Live in HD presentations

The McKittrick Hotel in New York, home to Sleep No More, The Woman in Black and Speakeasy Magick, has suspended all performances through April 12th.

Musco Center for the Arts has canceled all performances through early May.

The Music Center has announced that all venues (The Ahmanson Theatre, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Mark Taper Forum and Walt Disney Concert Hall) will be closed until further notice. This impacts the Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, Center Theatre Group, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center.

A Noise Within has announced the following cancellations:

The remaining performances of The Winter’s Tale, Alice in Wonderland, and all other public events have been canceled through the end of April.

Alice in Wonderland will now open their 2020-2021 season August 22nd – September 13th.

Sweeney Todd, has been rescheduled for September 27th – November 15th.

The Odyssey Theatre is canceling performances of The Serpent through March 29 with performances resuming April 3.

The Old Globe has announced that their productions of Little Women and Faceless will be postponed.

The Open Fist, currently in residence at the Atwater Village Theatre, has suspended all performances of Rorschach Fest.

The Outer Critics Circle Awards, scheduled for May 21st, have been postponed.

The Pacific Symphony has announced the following in relation to their schedule:

Pink Martini on March 13th and 14th has been postponed. They have been rescheduled for June 17th and 18th.

Nowruz on March 28th has been postponed.

The Texas Tenors on April 3rd and 4th has been cancelled.

Verdi’s Otello on April 23rd, 25th and 28th has been cancelled.

Windborne’s the Music of the Rolling Stones: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards 1969, originally scheduled for May 1sts and 2nd, has been rescheduled to June 19th and 20th.

Yang Plays Rachmaninoff, scheduled for May 7th – May 9th has been canceled.

Beethoven’s Razumovsky Quartet, scheduled for May 10th has been canceled.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame with live accompaniment by organist Dennis James, scheduled for May 10th, has been canceled.

Pacific Symphony Youth Ensemble concerts scheduled for May 9th, 11th and 12th has all been canceled.

*The Pantages Theatre has announced suspension of performances of Hamilton through September 6th.

The Pasadena Playhouse has announced that all performances through May 31st.

Ann, scheduled for May 27th – July 28th has been postponed.

Their production of Annie Get Your Gun, scheduled for July 28th – August 23rd has been canceled.

*The Pasadena Pops has canceled their 2020 summer season and will reschedule the following concerts for their 2021 summer season:

Sway with Me: Latin Rhythm and Swing scheduled for June 19
Road to Motown scheduled for July 10
Fleetwood Mac: A Tribute scheduled for July 24
Michael Feinstein Sings Sinatra’s Songbook scheduled for August 14
100 Years of Broadway scheduled for August 28 

The Pasadena Symphony has rescheduled their March 21st Mozart & McGegan concert to May 23rd.

The Public Theatre in New York (and the adjoining Joe’s Pub) has canceled all performances through April 12th.

*Chicago’s Ravinia Festival has canceled their 2020 season.

Roundabout Theatre in New York announced that their productions of Birthday Candles with Debra Messing and Caroline, Or Change will open in the fall. Both shows were on the cusp of starting previews when Broadway theatres shut down.

San Francisco Opera has canceled their summer season scheduled to run June 7th to July 3rd.

*The Segerstrom Center has announced the following postponements, rescheduling and cancellations:

Orange County Millennial Choirs and Orchestras on April 1st has been rescheduled to June 2nd

Shen Yun from April 3rd – April 12th has been postponed

Ailey II on April 11th has been postponed

Chicago from April 14th – April 19th has been canceled

Sibelius Piano Trio on April 17th has been canceled

Clayton Brothers Quintet on April 18th has been canceled

Earth Day Celebration on April 18th has been canceled

Distinguished Speakers Series: President George W. Bush on April 20th has been postponed

Tuesday Night Dance Lessons on April 21st and 28th has been canceled

Laura Benanti from April 23rd – April 25th has been postponed

Best of Dance on April 25th has been canceled

Beckman Arts and Science Family Festival on May 2nd has been postponed.

Paper Planet on May 2nd and 3rd has been canceled.

Celtic Woman on May 2nd has been canceled.

*Les Misérables, scheduled for May 5th – May 17th and rescheduled for October 6th – October 18th has been canceled.

Emerson String Quartet on May 7th has been postponed.

Silent Disco on May 8th has been postponed.

Rock, Paper, Scissors: CUMBIA! on May 15th has been postponed.

Swing Under the Stars on May 29th has been canceled.

*Mean Girls, scheduled for June 16th – June 28th, has been postponed. The venue is hoping to reschedule.

*The Band’s Visit, originally scheduled for August 12th – August 23rd has been rescheduled for April 13th – April 25th, 2021.

*The Lion King, originally scheduled for September 2nd – September 27th, has been canceled.

*Ain’t Too Proud to Beg – The Life and Times of The Temptations, scheduled for November 17th – 29th has been rescheduled for September 14th – 26th, 2021.

*The Donna Summer Musical, originally scheduled for January 12th – 17th, has been cancelled due to a rescheduling of the show’s tour.

*The Cher Show, originally scheduled for April 13th – April 25th has been canceled due to a rescheduling of the show’s tour.

Shakespeare in the Park in New York has canceled this summer’s season.

Soka Performing Arts Center has announced the postponement of the remainder of its 2019-2020 season.

The Soraya has announced the following cancellations and postponements:

The Jerusalem Quartet on April 5th has been canceled.

The Count Basie Orchestra on April 9th has been postponed.

Amir El Saffar on April 16th has been canceled.

Bollywood Boulevard on April 19th has been canceled.

Randy Newman’s Faust on May 9th has been canceled.

Violins of Hope, which was postponed, will have an opening night concert by the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony on January 14th.

South Coast Rep has announced the cancellation of all performances of Outside Mullingar beginning March 13th. (They are “working to make the performance available online. More details will be announced in the coming days.”)

*San Francisco’s Stern Grove Festival has canceled their 2020 season.

Tonality has postponed their A Call to Restore concert that was set to take place on March 15th. Another date will be announced shortly.

The Tony Awards, scheduled for June 7th, have been postponed.

The Verdi Chorus has canceled their Opera Gets Real performances scheduled for April 18th and 19th.

*The Wallis has announced the cancellation of all performances through June 30th.

If you have an event that has been postponed or canceled and would like it included in this list, please send the details to contact@Culturalattache.co

Photo “Comedy/Tragedy on Keys” by Craig L. Byrd

The post Coronavirus Cancellations & Postponements – Updated 5/14/20 appeared first on Cultural Attaché.