Cast members from the upcoming revival of Caroline, or Change, the 2003 musical by Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori, appeared today on ABC-TV’s Good Morning America. The Roundabout Theatre transfer of this London production, which premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2017, will have a limited run from October 8, 2021, through January 9, 2022, at Broadway’s Studio 54. The creative team includes Michael Longhurst (direction), Ann Yee (choreography), Fly Davis (sets, costumes), Jack Knowles (lights), Paul Arditti (sound), Chris Fenwick (music direction), Nigel Lilley (music supervision), and Rick Bassett, Joseph Joubert, and Buryl Red (orchestrations).
Leading the cast is Sharon D. Clarke, reprising her Olivier Award-winning performance as Caroline Thibodeaux. The cast also features Adam Makké / Jaden Myles Waldman / Gabriel Amoroso (Noah), Samantha Williams (Emmie), Caissie Levy (Rose), John Cariani (Stuart), Tamika Lawrence (Dotty), Arica Jackson (Washer), Kevin S. McAllister (Dryer/Bus), N’Kenge (Moon), Alexander Bello (Jackie), Jayden Theophile (Joe), Chip Zien (Mr. Stopnick), Stuart Zagnit (Grandpa), and Joy Hermalyn (Grandma), with Nasia Thomas (Radio 1), Nya (Radio 2), and Harper Miles (Radio 3), whom you can watch below perform “Salty Teardrops” on GMA after a brief interview with Clarke.
The long-awaited ceremony for the 2020 Tony Awards not only celebrated the 2019-20 Broadway season but also the return of live stage performances after 18 months of pandemic lockdown. In a bifurcated broadcast, the majority of awards were presented during a 7pm-9pm Paramount+ livestream, which featured a reunion of the original Hairspray cast in “You Can’t Stop the Beat” and original Dreamgirls Tony winner Jennifer Holliday in “And I Am Telling You.” The 9pm-11pm segment that aired on CBS was dubbed “Broadway’s Back” and was hosted by Hamilton Tony winner Leslie Odom Jr. Below is Odom in the opening title song by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman with Amber Ruffin.
https://youtu.be/kmL9xVHqeJE
The CBS broadcast also included clips from the three nominated musicals plus performances by David Byrne in “Burning Down the House” from special Tony winner American Utopia, John Legend in a medley with the cast of Ain’t Too Proud, Daniel J. Watts and Jared Grimes with Broadway Advocacy Coalition, and an extended in memoriam section featuring Kelli O’Hara and Norm Lewis in “Somewhere” (West Side Story) and Brian Stokes Mitchell in “Impossible Dream” (Man of La Mancha).
The award for best musical went to Moulin Rouge!, one of its 10 wins among 14 nominations. Its other trophies went to Aaron Tveit (actor) and Danny Burstein (featured actor) — ending his record as the most nominated performer without a win — as well as to Alex Timbers (direction), Sonya Tayeh (choreography), and Derek McLane (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes), Justin Townsend (lights), Peter Hylenski (sound), and the team of Kate Kresek, Charlie Rosen, Matt Stine and Justin Levine (orchestrations) in a sweep of the musical design prizes. [You can read my interview with Justin Levine in Dramatics magazine.] Below is the official video of Tveitin “Come What May.”
The bio-musical Tina took home one award among its 12 nominations for title star Adrienne Warren (actress). Below is Warren in a medley from the broadcast. The jukebox musical Jagged Little Pill, which went into the ceremony with 15 nominations, took home two prizes: Diablo Cody (book) and Lauren Patten (featured actress), who sings the showstopper “You Oughta Know.”
https://youtu.be/YGCvKMAviRI
For the first time in Tony history the award for best score went to a play. Christopher Nightingale won for his work on Jack Thorne’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which also swept the play design prizes, converting all five of its overall nominations into gold. Rob Howell won for sets and for costumes, Hugh Vanstone for lights, and Simon Baker for sound. Below is the show’s official trailer, featuring Nightingale’s music.
The CBS presentation offered numerous duets, including Odom and Josh Groban in “Beautiful City” (Godspell), Odom and wife Nicolette Robinson in “You Matter to Me” (Waitress), Ben Platt and Anika Noni Rose in “Move On” (Sunday in the Park with George), and Titus Burgess and Andrew Rannells in “It Takes Two” (Into the Woods), plus the original Broadway duos of Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel in “For Good” (Wicked), Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp in “What You Own” (Rent), and Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell in “Wheels of a Dream” (Ragtime). Below is that classic duos section.
https://youtu.be/_S6OSNKwbBo
The news among nonmusical shows was the shutout of Slave Play, which made history with its 12 nominations in 10 categories. The prize for best play went to The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez, the first Latino playwright to win. His show’s other three wins were for Stephen Daldry (director), Andrew Burnap (actor), and 90-year-old Lois Smith (featured actress), who became the oldest actor ever to win, replacing the late Cicely Tyson, who won in 2013 at age 89 for Trip to Bountiful. The remaining Tonys went to Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play as best revival, its star David Alan Grier as featured actor, and Mary-Louise Parker as actress for the play The Sound Inside.
The evening ended with a wrap-up of the night’s events in an improv performance from Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of special Tony winner Freestyle Love Supreme, which you can watch below.
Tony-nominated writer Melvin Van Peebles died Sep. 21 at his home in Manhattan. Born Aug. 21, 1932 in Chicago, Peebles earned a B.A. in literature from Ohio Wesleyan (1954). While in the Air Force, he married German actress Maria Marx. After his discharge, they moved to Mexico City, where Peebles painted portraits. The couple then moved to San Francisco, where Peebles drove cable cars. He also made three film shorts, which he took to Hollywood. Unable to find film work, Peebles moved his family to the Netherlands and studied astronomy at University of Amsterdam.
After his wife returned to the US, Peebles hitchhiked to Paris and busked for a time, until he established himself as a writer. In France, he wrote several novels, short stories, and plays. In 1968, he made his debut album, Brer Soul, and his first feature film, The Story of a Three-Day Pass, based on his novel La Permission. Now, Peebles found work in Hollywood with Watermelon Man (1970). Below is the film’s “Love, That’s America,” a theme song for the 2011 Occupy Wall Street. He went independent for his next feature, the landmark Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971).
Peebles made his Broadway debut with the book, lyrics, and music for Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death (1971), which built on his experimental spoken word albums of the 1960s. The show brought Peebles two Tony nominations and a Drama Desk Award. Below is the original Broadway cast, featuring Garrett Morris, in a selection from the show at the 1972 Tony Awards.
Peebles returned to Broadway the following year with the musical Don’t Play Us Cheap, an adaptation of his play La Fête à Harlem, which he also directed and produced. Below is original star Joshie Jo Armstead singing “You Cut Up the Clothes” in the 1973 film version. In the 1980s, Peebles premiered two more Broadway musicals: the short-lived Reggae (1980) and Waltz of the Stork (1982), which he also directed, produced, and performed in.
His next musical was Champeen (1983), which had an Off-Broadway run at Woody King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre with Ruth Brown as Bessie Smith. Peebles then became an options trader on the American Stock Exchange, while continuing to work as a performer and writer, winning a Daytime Emmy and a Humanitas Prize for the 1987 CBS Schoolbreak Special episode “The Day They Came to Arrest the Book.” Below is “A Brief History of Melvin Van Peebles,” a faux newsreel clip from the award-winning 2005 documentary How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It).
The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music has named Andrew Polec as the first prize winner in its 23rd annual Lotte Lenya Competition, which recognizes young singer-actors who are adept in both opera and operetta as well as Broadway music. Polec will receive a $20,000 first prize plus a $2,000 finalist prize. There were 15 finalists, culled from a record applicant pool of 500 entrants this year, from 29 countries and 39 US states.
Each finalist performed a continuous 15-minute program of four contrasting numbers, including at least one by Kurt Weill. Polec performed “She Loves Me” from She Loves Me by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, “Bilbao Song” from Happy End by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht (Michael Feingold translation), “Confession Aria” from Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie, and “How Glory Goes” from Floyd Collins by Adam Guettel. The judges — which included Victoria Clark, Mary Beth Peil, and Andy Einhorn — described Polec’s prorgam as “four perfectly curated one-act dramas.”
A graduate of the Brown-Trinity Rep MFA program, Polec has appeared Off-Broadway in The Fantasticks and on TV Katy Keene and Prodigal Son. His recent roles include Berger in Hair at the Old Globe in San Diego and Strat in Bat Out of Hell at the London Coliseum and New York’s City Center. Below is a sample of Polec’s winning program. His entire performance plus the awards ceremony, which took place in New York City on August 28, is available free and on-demand via OperaVision.
The 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards were handed out last night in a ceremony hosted by Cedric the Entertainer at L.A. Live’s Event Deck in downtown Los Angeles and broadcast on CBS and Paramount+. The big winner was The Crown (Netflix), which took home seven prizes, including Outstanding Drama Series — its first after four consecutive nominations — as well as Lead Actor (Josh O’Connor), Lead Actress (Olivia Coleman), Supporting Actor (Tobias Menzies), Supporting Actress (Gillian Anderson), Directing (Jessica Hobbs), and Writing (Peter Morgan).
For its first season, Ted Lasso (Apple TV+) took home four Emmys, including Comedy Series, Lead Actor (Jason Sudeikis), Supporting Actor (Brett Goldstein), and Supporting Actress (Hannah Waddingham). Two other shows picked up three prizes: the comedy series Hacks (HBO Max) won Lead Actress (Jean Smart), Directing (Lucia Aniello), and Writing (Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, Jen Statsky); and the limited series Mare of Easttown (HBO) won Lead Actress (Kate Winslet), Supporting Actor (Evan Peters), and Supporting Actress (Julianne Nicholson).
Other multiple winners were The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix), which earned trophies for Limited or Anthology Series and for Directing (Scott Frank), and Last Week Tonight (HBO), which converted its nominations for Variety Talk Series and Writing. Among the programs featuring musical work, the lone winner was Hamilton (Disney+), named Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded). You can watch the presentation below, announced by Amy Poehler and accepted by Renée Elise Goldsberry.
Yesterday afternoon, the free Curtain Up! festival, hosted by Broadway veterans Norm Lewis and Michael Urie, kicked off its three-day celebration of the return of Broadway after its 18-month pandemic hiatus. Below is a report from CBS2’s Dave Carlin about the planned weekend events, featuring clips of Friday’s performances by Wicked’s Jessica Volk singing “Gimme Gimme” from Thoroughly Modern Mille and Tony winner Brian Stokes Mitchell singing “There’s No Business Like Show Business” from Annie Get Your Gun on the festival stage in Times Square. Throughout the celebratory weekend, Broadway fans will also have the unique opportunity to enjoy interactive experiences and intimate concerts including Broadway sing a-longs, variety shows, and after-dark events.
Yesterday morning, Tony winner André De Shields (Hermes) and Tony nominee Amber Gray (Persephone) appeared on Good Morning America with fellow Tony nominee Eva Noblezada (Eurydice), Reeve Carney (Orpheus), Tom Hewitt (Hades), and the company of Hadestown to perform the number “Way Down Hadestown” from the TV show’s outdoor Times Square stage. The 2019 Tony-winning production resumed performances at the Walter Kerr Theatre on September 2, joining Waitress that night as the first musicals to reopen following last year’s Broadway shutdown.
Host Jimmy Fallon welcomed the Broadway cast of Six to The Tonight Show yesterday, in the penultimate installment of the late-night TV program’s “Broadway Week.” Stars Adrianna Hicks (Catherine of Aragon), Andrea Macasaet (Anne Boleyn), Abby Mueller (Jane Seymour), Brittney Mack (Anna of Cleves), Samantha Pauly (Katherine Howard), and Anna Uzele (Catherine Parr) performed their show’s opening number, “Ex-Wives,” which sets up the outlines of the stories that follow about the six wives of England’s Henry VIII. Six began its Broadway previews on February 13, 2020, and planned to open March 12, the very day that New York theaters shuttered due to the pandemic. The show resumes its previews tonight, in anticipation of an October 3 opening.
Hollywood Golden Age star Jane Powell died September 16 in Wilton, Conn. Born Suzanne Burce on April 1, 1929, in Portland, Ore., she began dance lessons at age 2 and made her local radio debut on Stars of Tomorrowat age 5. By age 12, she was touring the state as the Oregon Victory Girl to promote war bonds. In 1943, before her freshman year at Grant H.S., she competed on Janet Gaynor’s radio talent show Hollywood Showcase and won, which impressed MGM’s Louis B. Mayer enough to offer Powell a seven-year contract.
Within two months, she was loaned to United Artists for her film debut, Song of the Open Road (1944), with W.C. Fields. In the film, she played a child performer named Jane Powell, which she adopted as her own stage name. The following year, she played Snow White in the CBS radio adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Her MGM film debut came in 1946 with Holiday in Mexico, opposite Roddy McDowell. Below is the trailer for Song of the Open Road.
Powell gained widespread recognition in the 1951 musicals Royal Wedding opposite Fred Astaire, where she introduced the Oscar-nominated song “Too Late Now,” and Rich, Young and Pretty opposite Vic Damone, where she introduced the Oscar-nominated song “Wonder Why.” Her signature role, though, was Milly Pontipee in best picture Oscar nominee Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) opposite Howard Keel, from which you can watch Powell singing “Goin’ Courtin’” below.
In 1956, Powell’s cover of Cole Porter’s “True Love” (from High Society) peaked at #15 on Billboard’s Top 100, marking her only chart appearance. By the late 1950s, her film career slowed and Powell returned to theater and TV, beginning with a Dallas production of Oklahoma! as Laurey (1958) and a TV remake of Meet Me in St. Louis (1959) as Esther Smith, from which you can watch Powell singing “The Boy Next Door” below.
In 1961, Powell made a half-hour TV pilot, The Jane Powell Show, about a singer who marries a math professor (Russell Johnson) and has to adapt to small-town life, which you can watch below. The show wasn’t picked up, and Powell returned to regional theater productions. She made her sole Broadway appearance replacing Debbie Reynolds in the 1973 revival of Irene, then spent most of the next decades with TV guest roles, including The Love Boat (1981-82) and Growing Pains (1988-92).
https://youtu.be/-pXjJt1RaXo
Powell returned to the New York stage in the 2000 Off-Broadway revival of 70 Girls 70. Three years later, she played Mama Mizner in the out-of-town tryouts of Bounce. She ended the decade as vocalist for Portland’s Pink Martini, performing with the band at New York’s Lincoln Center (2008) and the Hollywood Bowl (2010). Following the 2015 death of her husband, Powell retired to Wilton, Conn. Below is Powell singing “Isn’t He Something!” on the Bounce Kennedy Center cast recording.
Yesterday evening, late-night host Stephen Colbert welcomed nine-time Tony winner Stephen Sondheim to The Late Show, and the iconic theater composer not only talked about the upcoming Olivier-winning, gender-reversed revival of Company(which resumes its Broadway previews on November 15, before a December 9 opening) but he also revealed that he has been writing the new musical Square One with Tony-nominated playwright David Ives, noting that the show had a reading last week and he hopes to “get it on next season.” You can watch the full interview segment below.
Coincidentally, Today hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager interviewed four-time Tony winner Nathan Lane yesterday morning, and he not only talked about the upcoming Hulu series Only Murders in the Building but also about that reading of Square One, in which he appeared with Bernadette Peters (beginning at 4:00 in the video below).
Cast members from the upcoming revival of Caroline, or Change, the 2003 musical by Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori, appeared today on ABC-TV’s Good Morning America. The Roundabout Theatre transfer of this London production, which premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2017, will have a limited run from October 8, 2021, through January 9, 2022, at Broadway’s Studio 54. The creative team includes Michael Longhurst (direction), Ann Yee (choreography), Fly Davis (sets, costumes), Jack Knowles (lights), Paul Arditti (sound), Chris Fenwick (music direction), Nigel Lilley (music supervision), and Rick Bassett, Joseph Joubert, and Buryl Red (orchestrations).
