Tony nominee and recent Golden Globe winner Ariana DeBose hosted this past weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live, the program’s first offering of the new year. Below is DeBose’s opening monologue, in which she gives a shout out to the Broadway community, noting how “Broadway has this magical ability to bring people together.” Then she offers a bit of musical theater magicherself, accompanied by long-time SNL repertory player Kate McKinnon, in a medley of songs from West Side Story, including “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty,” “Something’s Coming,” and “America.”
https://youtu.be/tLOEKEwjGKk
McKinnon also plays Maria von Trapp in a sketch that spoofs The Sound of Music, with DeBose playing fellow nun turned governess for another local widower (Keenan Thompson) and his children (Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman, Andrew Dismukes, Chris Redd, and Chloe Fineman), who have their own versions of “Do Re Mi” and “Edelweiss.”
Obie-winning director Robert Allan Ackerman died January 10 at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Born June 30, 1944, in Brooklyn, he grew up in Kew Gardens, Queens, and spent his summers at the resort his grandfather ownedin Mount Freedom, N.J. There, Ackerman played leading roles in a number of plays. After graduating from Adelphi College, he taught in Harlem for seven years, during which time he also made his Off-Broadway debut as an actor in the 1968 play An Ordinary Man.
In the 1970s, Ackerman left teaching and devoted himself to theater. With composer Mildred Kayden, he created the musical vaudeville Ionescopade, which premiered Off-Broadway in 1974 at Theater Four and received an Off-Broadway revival in 2012at York Theatre. (Below is a preview of the 2013 Odyssey Theatre production in Los Angeles.) Then in 1977, he directed Thomas Babe’s A Prayer for My Daughter at the O’Neill Center. Joseph Papp saw the production and brought the play to the Public Theater, which earned Ackerman an Obie Award.
Ackerman followed with four more Public productions of Babe’s work, establishing himself as a leading stage director. He made his Broadway debut with Martin Sherman’s Bent in 1979, then directed the Off-Broadway premiere of William Mastrosimone’s Extremities (1982) and John Byrne’s Slab Boys (1983), before making his Broadway musical debut as director of the ill-fated Legs Diamond (1988). Below is press footage of Peter Allen and the original cast.
Ackerman’s final Broadway credit is the short-lived revival of Oscar Wilde’s Salome (1992), after which he began his TV career with Nancy Barr’s “Mrs. Cage” for American Playhouse. Over the next two decades, he earned Emmy nominations for Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), My House in Umbria (2003), The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (2003), and The Reagans (2003).
In addition to his work in the U.S., Ackerman directed several productions on the West End, including Martin Sherman’s A Madhouse in Goa (1989) and Lanford Wilson’s Burn This (1990), as well as in Japan, including Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1994, 2004), which earned him a Yomiuri Theater Award.
Emmy-, Grammy-, and Oscar-winning lyricist Marilyn Bergman died January 8 in Los Angeles. Born Marilyn Keith on November 10, 1928, in Brooklyn, she majored in music at New York’s High School of Music & Art. While a student, she would play piano for country songwriter Bob Russell, who encouraged her to consider songwriting herself. After graduating from NYU, she did — moving to Los Angeles and working with composer Lew Spence. In 1956, she began cowriting with Alan Bergman, another Spence collaborator. They married two years later.
The Bergmans had their first Top 40 hit on the U.K. charts in 1957 with Dean Martin’s “The Man Who Plays the Mandolino” (music by Giuseppe Fanciulli). In 1958, they worked with Spence on the Bing Crosby album Never Be Afraid, a musical adaptation of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Below is Crosby singing the title song. They first charted on the U.S. Hot 100 with the Mills Brothers 1959 version of “Yellow Bird” (Norman Luboff).
They began the 1960s with Frank Sinatra’s recording of “Nice ’n’ Easy” (Spence), which earned them a 1961 Grammy nomination for Song of the Year, then landed in Billboard’s Top Five with Arthur Lyman’s 1961 version of “Yellow Bird.” They made their Broadway debut in 1964 with the short-lived musical Something More! (Sammy Fain). Below is a live recording of Barbara Cook singing “No Questions Asked.”
They made their film debut with the title song of the 1967 feature In the Heat of the Night (Quincy Jones) and ended the 1960s with their first Oscar nomination and win for “The Windmills of Your Mind” (Michel Legrand). They earned Oscar nods for the next four years: “Pieces of Dreams” (Legrand), “All His Children” (Henry Mancini), “Marmalade, Molasses & Honey” (Maurice Jarre), and the chart-topping title song from The Way We Were (Marvin Hamlisch), which brought the Bergmans their second Oscar win.
They received their second Song of the Year Grammy nod in 1973 for “The Summer Knows” (Legrand) and their first win in 1975 for “The Way We Were,” which also brought them another trophy for best original film or TV score. In 1975, they earned their first Emmy nominations and win for Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, collecting another Emmy in 1977 for “The Big Event” (Leonard Rosenman). Below is Maureen Stapleton performing “Who Gave You Permission?” in Queen of the Stardust Ballroom.
In 1978, they received their fifth Grammy nod for A Star Is Born. They also returned to Broadway with Ballroom (Billy Goldenberg), which brought them a Grammy nomination, and to the top of the charts with “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” sung by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, which brought them a Grammy nod for Song of the Year. They ended the 1970s with an Oscar nomination for “The Last Time I Felt Like This” (Hamlisch). Below is Dorothy Loudon singing “Fifty Percent” from Ballroom.
In 1980, the Bergmans were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and earned an Oscar nod for “I’ll Never Say ‘Goodbye’” (David Shire). They had three Oscar nominations in 1983: “If We Were In Love” (John Williams), “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” (Legrand), and chart-topper “It Might Be You” (Dave Grusin) from Tootsie, whose score also earned a Grammy nod. In 1984, they saw their third Oscar win and another Grammy nomination for Yentl(Legrand), which also earned Oscar nods for the songs “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” and chart-topper “The Way He Makes Me Feel” (which you can watch Barbra Streisand sing below).
They began the 1990s with Oscar and Grammy nominations for “The Girl Who Used to Be Me” (Hamlisch), then an Emmy nod for “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” (Hamlisch). In 1994, Bergman became thefirst woman president and board chair of ASCAP, serving until 2009. In 1995, she won an Emmy for “Ordinary Miracles” from Barbra: The Concert (which you can watch below) and, in 1996, received Oscar and Grammy nominations for “Moonlight” (Williams). She ended the decade with an Emmy win for “A Ticket to Dream.”
In 2001, Streisand released the album What Matters Most, recorded as a tribute to the Bergmans, and the couple received their seventh Emmy nomination for “On the Way to Becoming Me.” The following year, Bergman was named as the first chair of Library of Congress National Sound Recording Preservation Board and won the Recording Academy Governor’s Award. She the won the Grammy Trustees Award in 2013 and her final Emmy nomination in 2018 for “Just Getting Started” (Grusin).
The swings and understudies of Broadway’s musicals are finally getting some well-deserved praise, receiving attention in news outlets on both sides of the Atlantic, from The New York Post to London’s The Stage and The Independent. The catalyst for this overdue acknowledgement is the viral clip of Hugh Jackman’s recent curtain call during The Music Man. He offered thanks to Kathy Voytko, who stepped in for ailing leading lady Sutton Foster at the last minute. “Kathy, when she turned up for work at 12 o’clock, could have played any of eight roles,” Jackman said, “and at one o’clock, she had her very first rehearsal as Marian Paroo.”
He then called up all of the swings and understudies in that performance and added, “The swings, the understudies, they are the bedrock of Broadway.” Below is a segment from ABC-TV’s Good Morning America, which profiled Voytko, as well as fellow swings Sir Brock Warren (who covers David Ruffin in Ain’t Too Proud), Angelo Soriano (who covers Iago in Aladdin), and Corey J. Skelton (who plays Young Simba in The Lion King but stepped in at the last minute for Young Nala).
Tony nominee Ariana DeBose, who received a Golden Globe Award as Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture just this past Sunday for her performance as Anita in the new musical adaptation of West Side Story, will host the January 15 episode of Saturday Night Live, the program’s first offering of the new year and the tenth show overall in the 47th season of NBC’s late-night variety show. The musical guest will be Bleachers, the indie pop band led by Jack Antonoff of the pop rock trio Fun. Below are the promos for the episode, featuring SNL repertory player Bowen Yang.
This week, “Broadway Musicals” was the category for the Final Jeopardy! round on the long-running game show. The clue was “Each in a show that ran more than 2 years, Ethel Merman & Sarah Jessica Parker played 2 different characters with this first name.” None of the contestants came up with the correct answer, but returning champion Amy Schneider’s guess of “Rose” was close: Merman originated the role of Mama Rose in Gypsy, and Parker did play Rosemary in the 1995 Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Still, those names are different, and the 1995 revival only ran for a year and a half.
The correct answer is “What is Annie?” Merman created the role of sharpshooter Annie Oakley in Irving Berlin’s 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun, while Parker made her Broadway debut in 1978 as the understudy for the title role of the 1977 Charles Strouse musical Annie, assuming the role in 1979 after the departure of Shelley Bruce. Despite losing money in the final round, though, Schneider won the game (her 30th consecutive) and became the first woman to pass the $1 million mark in Jeopardy! prize money.
BroadwayWorld has announced the winners of its inaugural BroadwayWorld Off/Off-Off Broadway Awards, which celebrate productions across New York City that had their first performances between October 1, 2019, and September 30, 2021, in an Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, or streaming venue. The big winner, with seven awards, was Stranger Sings!, Jonathan Hogue’s parody musical that ran at Players Theatre in August 2021. It was honored as Best New Musical (Off-Broadway), as well as for Best Peformance (Savannah-Lee Mumford), Best Costume Design (Cassandra McCall Endicott), Best Lighting Design (Jesse Scott), Best Choreography (Ashley Marinelli), Best Scenic Design (James Ortiz), and Best Sound Design (Megan “Deets” Culley).
https://youtu.be/uBARmUi0DVs
The award for Best New Musical (Off-Off Broadway) went to Rathskeller: A Musical Elixir, by Collin Kessler (book) and Brianna Barnes (score), which Dame Productions presented at New Ohio in September 2021. It is also won for Best Original Choreography (Grace Rudd). The original punk musical The Unrepentant Necrophile, created and performed by Katie Hartman, Nick Ryan, and Nathan Gebhard, was named Best Streaming New Musical.
https://youtu.be/TRIYtRltJNA
Love Quirks, which ran at St. Luke’s in February 2020, took four Off-Broadway awards: Best Direction (Brian Childers), Best New Book (Mark Childers), Best New Score (Seth Bisen-Hersh), and Best Production. And the revival of the 1973 musical Seesaw, which ran at Theatre Row in February 2020 as part of J2 Spotlight’s inaugural season, took home three Off-Off-Broadway prizes: Best Direction (Robert W. Schneider), Best Performance (Stephanie Israelson), and Best Production.
Other productions with multiple wins include the Off-Off-Broadway musical Anna Karenina: A Riff, which Notch Theatre presented at The Flea in November 2019. It brought awards for Best New Book to Gwen Kingston and Best New Score toWill Turner, Teresa Lotz, Yan Li, and Christie Baugher. The Last Boy, Steven Fisher’s new Off-Broadway play with music that ran at St. Clement’s in July 2021, was named Best New Play and Best Production of a Play. It also earned honors for Best Direction (Steven Fisher) and Best Performance (Dean Trevisani).
The remaining musical works honored include the Kimmel Center’s production of A Soulful Christmas as Best Streaming Musical, Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation as Best Theatrical/Immersive Experience (Off-Broadway), Dreamgirls on Clubhouse for Best Performance in a Streaming Musical (Alex Newell), and Marguerite for Best Non-Cabaret Solo Performance (Cady Huffman).
On Sunday, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association took to social media to reveal the winners of its 79th Golden Globe Awards for the best of film and TV of 2021. For the first time since 2008, there was no televised ceremony, due to boycotts by various media outlets and entertainment professionals, so the presentation was a private affair, with attendance limited to the association’s beneficiaries. Going into the ceremony, the films Belfast and The Power of the Dog were tied for the most nominations, at seven each. The big winners of the evening ended up being The Power of the Dog and West Side Story, along with HBO’s Succession, which each took home three awards.
The new musical adaptation of West Side Story won the award for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, as well as for Best Actress to newcomer Rachel Zegler (as María) and Best Supporting Actress to Tony nominee Ariana DeBose (as Anita). The musical adaptation of Tick, Tick … Boom! brought home its sole win for Best Actor to Tony winner Andrew Garfield (as Jonathan Larson).
Among the other musical wins were the Disney film Encanto, named Best Animated Feature, and the title track written by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell for the 25th Bond film, No Time to Die, which was named Best Original Song.
Broadway veteran Joan Copeland died January 4 in Manhattan. Born Joan Miller on June 1, 1922, in New York, “from the time I was a little girl I had the stage bug,” she told The New York Times. Copeland graduated from Brooklyn’s Abraham Lincoln H.S. and took her stage name to avoid trading on her brother Arthur’s fame. “Perhaps I was unconsciously influenced by my brother. He had made it. I was desperate to get out of the dreariness I was living in.” Copeland made her professional debut in 1945 as Juliet at BAM and her Broadway debut in the play Sundown Beach (1948). Her musical debut was in the short-lived Off-Broadway musical Conversation Piece (1957).
In “Pal Joey”
Her first Broadway musical assignment was as Vivien Leigh’s replacement in Tovarich (1963). She returned the following year in the short-lived musical Something More!, after a summer tour as Eliza in My Fair Lady, and ended the decade as Katharine Hepburn’s standby in the 1969 musical Coco. In 1970, she created the role of Esther in the Biblical musical Two by Two, but she was perhaps best-known for her performance as scheming socialite Vera Simpson in the 1976 Broadway revival of Pal Joey, which brought her a Drama Desk nomination. Below is Copeland singing “An Old Man” from the original Broadway cast album of Two by Two.
In “Camille Claudel”
In 1980, she would win a Drama Desk Award for her brother’s biographical drama The American Clock, in which she portrayed her own mother. In 1991, she won an Obie Award for her performance in the Off-Broadway production of Richard Greenberg’s play The American Plan, then spent the next decade as Judge Rebecca Stein on the TV series Law & Order (1991-2001). Her recent musical work includes the 2007 production of Frank Wildhorn’s Camille Claudel at Goodspeed.
London theatre critics have given widely mixed reviews to the world premiere of Folk, a play with music inspired by a true story, set during 1903 in Somerset, where Louie’s mind overflows with the hundreds of songs passed down from her mother. She meets visiting composer Cecil Sharp, who is out on a mission to transcribe each and every one. The creative team includes Nell Leyshon (book), Roxana Silbert (direction), Rose Revitt (production design), Matt Haskins (lights), Gary Yershon (music direction), Tingying Dong (sound), and Ayse Tashkiran (movement direction). The cast includes Ben Allen (John), Sasha Frost (Lucy), Mariam Haque (Louie), and Simon Robson (Sharp). The show runs at Hempstead Theatre through February 5.
The Arts Desk (Helen Hawkins): This is a studio-space piece with big ambitions. Its title, for a start, has a double resonance: as a term for the ethos of a whole nation, or as a description of its untutored art, often referred to as “naive.” Leyshon puts the two into a standoff. … Sharp is brisk and flowery but kindly, messianic about collecting the nation’s songs. But his mission, Leyshon suggests, is not so much scholarly as a form of cultural imperialism. … All in all, watching Folk is an agreeable experience, but by the end you hanker for more grit, to have seen something wilder and darker, like the tones of Haque’s voice. 3 out of 5 stars.
Evening Standard (Nick Curtis): This stiff production … addresses interesting questions about who owns a nation’s culture with clunking obviousness. … Leyshon fabricates a fuzzy-edged, discursive story around four real people, playing fast and loose with the scanty facts. Which is and always would be fine, if the results were dramatically interesting. … For those not automatically repelled by a play about folk music, there’s pleasure to be had in the ideas behind the script, and the subtler moments from Haque and Frost. … But dear me, this isn’t how London theatre was supposed to start in 2022. This celebration of song strikes a bum note. 2 out of 5 stars.
London Unattached (Joshua Korber Hoffman): This illuminating real-life story of English folk music was both touching and educational. … The script, by Somerset-born Nell Leyshon sensitively captures the moral grey area of folk song “collecting.” … Mariam Haque’s performance as Louie Hooper is stunning. Haque’s voice is perfectly suited to the challenging songs she sings throughout. … For those with a keen interest in folk music, or for those with only the merest understanding, Folk is a treat. … Folk is also a loving portrayal of Somerset and an important reminder of English history rooted in rural life.
WhatsOnStage (Alun Hood): We’re not even a full week into 2022 and already Hampstead is setting the bar for new writing impressively high. … Folk is likely to prove a significant career highlight, both for [Leyshon] and several of her collaborators. … Silbert has similarly struck gold in the casting of this unconventional heroine: Haque is extraordinary, suggesting Hooper’s bruised soul and untutored brilliance. … It’ll be a long time before I forget Haque’s spellbinding second act deconstruction of the folk song Sharp has homogenised for wider consumption. … Like the music that inspired it, Folk deserves to be around for a very long time. 5 out of 5 stars.
Tony nominee and recent Golden Globe winner Ariana DeBose hosted this past weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live, the program’s first offering of the new year. Below is DeBose’s opening monologue, in which she gives a shout out to the Broadway community, noting how “Broadway has this magical ability to bring people together.” Then she offers a bit of musical theater magic herself, accompanied by long-time SNL repertory player Kate McKinnon, in a medley of songs from West Side Story, including “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty,” “Something’s Coming,” and “America.”
