AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

Later this week, I'll be running a few CD review round-up columns. One will focus on discs featuring female vocalists (Jill O'Hara, Sutton Foster, Spider Saloff and Nancy Stearns, among others). Another will focus on guys (Kevin Dozier, Steven Cagan, Andy Friedman and Cortes Alexander). And, if all goes well, a third will focus on some smaller musicals that have put out original cast recordings.

Hopefully, this will clear my decks for the onslaught of new discs, just released or about to be released including:

• Shrek, the Musical – the original cast recording is scheduled for release on March 24 – Decca Broadway already has the page set up for samples – so, if you want to see a track list, visit: www.Shrek-Music.com. The disc hits stores a month from today, March 24.

• Broadway Musicals of 1930 – the latest in the series of recordings of the Town Hall concerts produced by Scott Siegel. These are discs are now being issued by Original Cast Records, and as with all of the previous releases, it's a mix of standards are rarities. Including two previously unrecorded songs: "If I Were You, Love (I’d Jump Right In The Lake)" from Smiles and "I’ve Got A Bug In My Head" from Lew Leslie’s International Revue. This one's in stores already

• Felicia Finley, one of the stars of The Color Purple will be digitally releasing "Great Mood for a Tuesday," on March 14. For her debut solo album, Finley has selected an array of pop songs which teasingly range from classic rock to modern country. More information about this one is available at www.FeliciaFinley.net.

• The Tony Award-winner LaChanze also has a new solo album out: Love LaChanze. The songlist for this one includes original compositions from the singer as well as songs from writers like Peter Gabriel and Chaka Khan. This one's already available as a digital download. More information can be found on the performer's website: www.lachanze.com

• DRG Records will keep busy this winter/spring with a host of reissues. The Original Cast Recording of Maggie Flynn is already in stores, and the company is promising Mister President and Wish You Were Here in the coming weeks.

• The original cast recording of Stephen Sondheim's Road Show is only one of the discs scheduled for release from PS Classics in the coming months. Also on tap for this company: solo albums from Stephen Pasquale and Malcolm Gets, and Groovelily's Sleeping Beauty Wakes.

And while I'm talking about things that need to be listened to, the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization has begun offering podcasts about musicals in its libraries. The first five are up and include one on Allegro and one is a healthy (nearly 45 minutes) interview with Charles Strouse. The links above will take you to the iTunes store for these two directly.

---- Andy Propst

New York Times

Love Curdled Through a Malevolent Scheme
Shakespeare is the star in the gripping “Othello.” He is handled with the kind of artistry we rarely find.

New York Daily News

'The Winter's Tale,' 'Othello' are suspicious but delicious
An uneasy mix of dark tragedy, boisterous comedy and magical fantasy, "The Winter's Tale" is deemed one of Shakespeare's "problem" plays. But Sam Mendes' elegant production skillfully reconciles jarring moods.

Associated Press

Powerful performances fuel off-B'way's 'Othello'
That "green-eyed monster," jealousy, lurks beneath the action and finally explodes in a stunning off-Broadway production of Shakespeare's "Othello."

Variety

Review: Othello
...With no fussy sets or costumes to lean on, a brilliant cast finds the freedom to focus on the elements of the play that matter most: the tortured psychology of its characters and the language of the gods who created them to suffer.

Back Stage

Othello reviewed by Andy Propst
Clocking in at nearly three hours, director Arin Arbus' stuffy staging of Othello only sparks to life during its last 60 minutes.

TheaterMania

Review: Othello
Theatre for a New Audience offers a near-perfect production of Shakespeare's classic tragedy about jealousy.

CurtainUp

Review: Othello
The flaw of this production may be the risk one takes in concentrating so much on the tree of racism that the forest of the play is missed in the process

 

Variety

Review: That Pretty-Pretty; or, The Rape Play
Among other topics dear to its black heart, show rails against slacker guys who think of women as sex objects and literary guys who write stuff that feeds that perception. But due to self-indulgent writing (that shouldn't reflect on the game cast), much of the fun is lost in sloppy execution.

Back Stage

That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play reviewed by Leonard Jacobs
There are multiple beginnings to Sheila Callaghan's provocatively titled That Pretty Pretty; or, The Rape Play and many midsections and endings too.

TheaterMania

Review: That Pretty Pretty, Or the Rape Play
Sheila Callaghan's new play about misogyny in pop culture quickly grows tedious.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: That Pretty Pretty...
For something that’s not especially provocative, Sheila Callaghan’s new play at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater sure is dodgy to talk about. After all, you have to be careful about the company you keep if you’re going to try explaining why ...

Review: That Pretty Pretty, or the Rape Play
A romp through the dark corners of someone's psyche, male or otherwise

 

Additions for February 24, 2009:

AmericanTheaterWeb

Review; This Beautiful City
The Evangelicals of Colorado and Those Who Oppose Them

New York Post

Sermons on the mount
The Civilians hit the jackpot when they went to Colorado Springs, Colo., to research "This Beautiful City." While the theater troupe interviewed residents of the area that's ground zero for the evangelical Christian movement, the news broke about Ted Haggard, then the pastor of one of its biggest megachurches. In terms of...

The Wicked Stage

Testify
[This Beautiful City]

---

New York Times

In a Transformed City, Falling in and Out of Grace
“This Beautiful City,” the latest work of cultural anthropology from the Civilians, is an engaging, inquisitive and evenhanded work of theater.

Newsday

'This Beautiful City' falls short of potential

Associated Press

A docudrama examines the evangelical movement
"This Beautiful City" is a lively docudrama -- complete with countrified musical numbers -- that examines America's homegrown evangelical movement.

Variety

Review: This Beautiful City
The inclination is to laugh when the Civilians swing into their first song in "This Beautiful City," a cowboy ditty extolling Colorado as the promised land. But the laughter turns to slack-jawed astonishment once this wicked-smart documentary theater troupe gets to Colorado Springs and allows the residents of this "Christian El Dorado" to demonstrate the evangelical fervor that transformed it into the mecca of the megachurch movement.

Back Stage

This Beautiful City reviewed by Adam R. Perlman
If you've been under the vast Colorado sky, you have some idea why evangelicals think it's God's country -- and why locals won't be so easily driven away.

TheaterMania

Review: This Beautiful City
The Vineyard Theatre presents The Civilians' attention-getting stage documentary about what makes right-wing fundamentalists tick.

Talkin' Broadway

Review: This Beautiful City
That old saying about surprisingly true events, “If you saw this in a play, you’d never believe it,” has rarely been more apropos than with This Beautiful City, which just opened at the Vineyard Theatre.

CurtainUp

Review: This Beautiful City
While every one of the six actors is a star, with perhaps Stephen Plunkett and Marsha Stephanie Blake the standouts, the superstars of this show are scenic designer Neil Patel and lighting wizard David Weiner

 

Additions for February 24, 2009:

AmericanTheaterWeb

Review: The Winter's Tale
Finding Unity in Shakespeare's Fractured Play

Bloomberg.com

Ethan Hawke, Slinging Guitar, Heats Up Shakespeare's `Winter': John Simon
The Anglo-American, symbolically named Bridge Project has now introduced its second item, Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” to run in repertory with Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard.” Presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it is a rare chance to see one of Shakespeare’s less- performed plays, cast with such stellar actors as Simon Russell Beale, Sinead Cusack, Richard Easton, Rebecca Hall and Ethan Hawke (here slinging a guitar).

New York Daily News

'The Winter's Tale,' 'Othello' are suspicious but delicious
An uneasy mix of dark tragedy, boisterous comedy and magical fantasy, "The Winter's Tale" is deemed one of Shakespeare's "problem" plays. But Sam Mendes' elegant production skillfully reconciles jarring moods.

Hartford Courant

New York Stage: BAM Production of "The Winter's Tale" a Marvel

nytheatre.com

The Winter's Tale
Sam Mendes's new production of The Winter's Tale has just opened with a star-filled cast head by Simon Russell Beale as Leontes. Our reviewer Mitchell Conway says the show is excellent...

CurtainUp

Review: The Winter's Tale
With its superb transatlantic cast and masterful direction, this is certainly a Winter's Tale that can light up a cold winter's night. . . or afternoon.

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New York Times

Alas, Poor Leontes (That Good King Has Not Been Himself of Late)
The first 90 minutes of this “Winter’s Tale” have a pure emotional strength that leave you open mouthed and teary eyed.

Newsday

Bridge Project warms up to 'The Winter's Tale'

amNY New York City Theater

Theater Review of The Winter's Tale (BAM)
It’s now official. Year one of the three-year transatlantic Bridge Project – uniting an equally mixed group of English and American actors to perform classical plays in repertory under the direction of Sam Mendes – is a shining success.

New York Post

Winter's hot
You can't accuse director Sam Mendes of being timid. For his first season of the new transatlantic theater cooperative in resi dence at BAM he could have chosen one of Shakespeare's most durable plays, like "Twelfth Night" or "Othello." Instead, he's tackled "The Winter's Tale," perhaps the loopiest...

Associated Press

Bridge Project Finds the Heart in 'Winter's Tale'
''The Winter's Tale'' is a strangely schizophrenic play, but director Sam Mendes has found the heart in this odd Shakespearean romance and made its disparate pieces work.

Variety

Review: The Winter's Tale
...this elegant staging is so poignant in its sorrowful moods that the evening is both suspenseful and satisfying.

Back Stage

The Winter's Tale reviewed by Adam R. Perlman
A sad tale may be best for winter, but is it best for The Winter's Tale?

TheaterMania

Review: The Winter's Tale
Sam Mendes serves up an unusually lucid, tough-minded yet charming production of Shakespeare's late-era play.