AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

This is simply too important to not share verbatim. I'm delighted at the news and I'm sure that fans of musicals throughout the country will be happy about this update:

For a few months it looked like Footlight Records, the long cherished New York based specialist record store, was disappearing for ever when the website went offline in early December 2008; much to the chagrin of its numerous clients. Although the interest in musical theater has boomed in the mainstream in recent years, there has unfortunately been a corresponding loss in the number of stores specializing in this music with the loss of Tower Records on Broadway amongst others particularly felt. Footlight however has always been the primary source in New York for Broadway cast albums, vocalists and film soundtracks since it opened its doors some thirty years ago and for music lovers across the globe for the last decade after it developed its online presence. After becoming a purely online store in 2004 it has continued to be a hub for specialist music. In January 2009, the new owner, Bruce Yeko bought the site in order to keep this important resource open to the musical theater CD buying public and will be refocusing the online store mainly on Broadway shows and vocalists of this kind.

New Owner
Bruce Yeko traveled to New York from Wisconsin in 1962 specifically to bring himself closer to the world of Broadway, and has a Guinness Book of Records like streak of seeing every new musical that opened on Broadway over 42 years (including some that didn’t even make it to opening night!).

He started Original Cast Records in 1976 in order to preserve the musicals that he loved, that might not otherwise be recorded. The company was a thing of passion, although his first release ‘The Bakers Wife’ written by Stephen Schwartz and including Patti LuPone as a performer went on to be a runaway success and continues to be much sought after to this day. This recording was of note as it was the first cast album to be produced of a show that closed out of town which featured the original cast.

Since then Bruce has been involved in producing and releasing over 300 cast albums. He has worked with many of the legends of Broadway including Alan J Lerner, Burton Lane and Charles Strouse and such diverse recording stars as Angela Lansbury, Mickey Rooney and Kristen Chenoweth. Recent recordings have included: The Broadway Musicals of 1930 (part of an 18cd series from Town Hall) and The York Theatre recording of the 1958 musical The Body Beautiful (by Bock, Harnick and Stein)

History of Footlight Records
Footlight Records was started in 1977 as a store on East 12th St by Gene Dingenry and Ed McGrath. The store specialized in Broadway cast albums, soundtracks and vocals from across these genres and it soon became a gathering place for collectors not only from New York but from acro ss the country and around the globe. It 1992 the store was purchased by Ron Saja who operated it successfully until 2004. With rising real estate prices and an already successful online presence the decision was made to take the store completely virtual in 2004. With Ron moving onto pastures and projects new, BruceYeko is keeping this important one-stop-shop resource available to fans of musicals and singers of the American Songbook

Footlight website is back up and running: www.footlight.com

Theatergoers spend a lot of time craning their heads during Austin Pendleton's revival of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, which opened last night at Classic Stage Company. Scenic designer Santo Loquasto has provided an appropriately claustrophobic two-story set to represent the agrarian Russian estate that's inhabited by Vanya (Denis O'Hare), his niece Sonya (Mamie Gummer) and a host of other characters, but the stage is also bisected by a phalanx of wooden pillars that often obscure the action. There's a marvelous rabbit warren-like visual to the design, but there come times when, no matter where one is sitting, one's straining to see the actors. Theatergoers may find that there's an additional strain put on their necks – a sort of whiplash – during this uneven staging from Austin Pendleton: individual performances vacillate, from the sublime to the wooden, often within the blink of an eye.

This classic play, that's part comedy and part drama, unfolds over the course of a few months on the estate as Vanya and Sonya host her father, the retired professor (George Morfogen) and the much younger woman whom he's married after his wife's death, Yelena (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The professor's often childishly petulant behavior and demands have disrupted life on the estate, and so too, has the gorgeous Yelena's mere presence. Vanya pines for her, as does Astrov (Peter Sarsgaard), the local physician who's often called to see after one of the professor's many maladies. Yelena, bored with not only provincial life, but life in general, isn't aware of her affect on these two men, but she can see that her step-daughter cares deeply for Astrov.

Pendleton's production, which uses a simple and colloquial new translation from Carol Rocamora, deftly captures the sense of life on the estate and the effect that these characters have on one another in cramped quarters. And there are times when each of these actors delivers when a performance that border on the sublime. A heart-to-heart conversation that Sonya and Yelena share is extremely touching, as Sonya confesses her feelings for Astrov. Similarly, whenever O'Hare, whose performance can be curiously idiosyncratic, to the point of literally chewing on the scenery, and Sarsgaard square off, the tension between the two men, who only hint at their romantic rivalry, is palpable. Throughout Gyllenhaal, looking gorgeous? In Suzy Benzinger's period gowns, conveys Yelena's unsystematic sensuality, but whenever she and Sarsgaard share the stage their performances falter. It's almost as if the pair (a couple offstage) does not want to betray themselves or their relationship.

It's acting that's the stuff of both magic and stuffiness. Only Gummer, seen in several other NYC productions of late, and daughter of actress Meryl Streep, delivers consistently. Her understated work as Sonya can often communicate three or four emotions at once. At a moment when Sonya wants to yell at her father because of his behavior, Sonya finds him in a vaguely intimate moment with Yelena. Gummer manages to communicate not only Sonya's distress – which is prompted primarily by her love of Astrov, but also her exasperation and her discomfort at seeing her father with a woman other than her mother.

Like Loquasto's set which is a series of tiered compartments, Gummer's performance is a terrific amalgam of feelings stacked on top of one another, and all one can do is watch without moving to see where the action will go next; a respite from the seesawing that pervades so much of this "Vanya."

---- Andy Propst

Uncle Vanya plays at Classic Stage Company (136 East 13th Street). Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 8pm; Saturday at 2 and 8pm; and Sunday at 2pm. Tickets are $70 and $75 and can be purchased by calling 212-352-3101. Online ticketing and further information is also available at www.ClassicStage.org.