Happy Birthday, Joel Grey & Bill Irwin!

JOEL GREY  

Joel Grey is most beloved

for originating the role of the

Master of Ceremonies

in Cabaret

both in the film & Broadway,

for which he won the Tony, Golden Globe, &

 Academy Awards.

Other noted Broadway credits include the original Wizard in Wicked (2003) & Moonface Martin in the 2011 revival of Anything Goes. 

BILL IRWIN

Bill Irwin is best known for his innovative clown work [Sesame Street's Mr. Noodle!],

but deserves more acknowlegment for his accomplishments as an actor on film & stage.

He has appeared in over 20 films (mostly in supporting roles):

• My Blue Heaven: 1990 comedy with Steve Martin & Rick Moranis
• Stepping Out: 1991 tap-dancing role along-side Liza Minelli
• Scenes From a Mall: playing a mime with Steve Martin & Bette Midler
• The film adaptations of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Laramie Project, & A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

His impressive theatre docket:

• 2010: New Victory Theatre presented Irwin with first-ever New Victory Arts award for “bringing the arts to kids and the kids to the arts.”
• 2005: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Kathleen Turner, for which he won the Tony for Best Actor.
• 2002: Replacement cast of Bway's The Goat with Sally Field
• 1999: Special Tony (with David Shiner for Live Theatrical Presentation for their show Fool Moon (which has already won Drama Desk Award for “Unique Theatrical Experience” & an Outer Critic’s Circle “Special Achievement” Award
• 1992: Obie-Award for performance in Texts for Nothing
• 1988: Waiting for Godot with Steve Martin & Robin Williams 
  

I first met Bill Irwin on March 10, 2008. I was working as a Marketing Intern at Philadelphia Theatre Company, who had commissioned him to write a completely original, soap-box production. I was able to sit in on the first reading, which had been highly anticipated because no one knew what to expect. What he brought to the table was The Happiness Lectures, a smart & innovative production that provided a kaleidoscope of puppets, off-the-wall physicality, trampolines, mirrors, clowns with top hats, songs…It could have ended up a strange jumble of a production, but he executed such a tight & specific vision that was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I love Bill Irwin; he brings such a different style to the theatre & has almost coined & created the idea of marrying theatre with the circus (besides Cirque du Soleil, but that’s it’s own thing).

2012 Pulitzer Prizes

The Prizewinners & Nominated Finalists
will be announced on April 16.

"Last year at this time, as Playbill was polling theatre pundits about possible recipients of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, many assumed that Jon Robin Baitz’s widely praised family drama Other Desert Cities was the obvious front-runner. But Lincoln Center Theatre shook its head at the suggestion. The production did not officially open at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre until January 2011 (previews began in December 2010), and was thus not eligible for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Pulitzer rules clearly stated, "Productions opening in the United States between Jan. 1, 2010 and Dec. 31, 2010 are eligible." A year has passed — the 2012 Pulitzers and finalists in a number of literary and journalistic divisions get announced April 16 — and now it looks like it may now be Robbie's turn. (Baitz is known to his intimates by that diminutive.)

And, as luck would have it, the play is still running. Other Desert Cities transferred to Broadway on Nov. 3, 2011, where it still plays. So if the Pulitzer jurors (who make the recommendations) and the Pulitzer judges (who choose the winner) want to refresh their memory as to the quality of the script, they have ready access to the living, breathing premiere production. Remember what a last-minute visit by the judges to the un-recommended Next to Normal did to the 2010 race?

Should Baitz win, the honor will be long in coming for the one-time golden boy of the American theatre. The dramatist's talent has been critically praised since The Film Society bowed in 1987. But, a quarter century and a dozen plays later, his career has been more roller-coaster that steady incline. The closest he came to the Pulitzer was in 1996, when A Fair Country, one of Baitz's best-regarded plays, was a finalist for the prize. Other Desert Cities is, in fact, the first Broadway play for Baitz, who is now 50.Nearly every one of the dozen critics, press agents and pundits who were polled for this article assumed Other Desert Cities was running well ahead of the pack. And those who didn't assume that thought the play had been eligible in 2011. As one observer commented,

'The more interesting guessing game [this year] is who will the finalists be.'"

-Robert Simonson, PLAYBILL.

THE PULITZER & MUSICALS

I love that the category is categorized as DRAMA (as opposed to differentiating between plays & musicals). Plays largely dominate the winner’s circle, but 8 musicals have had their own deserving moments in the sun (on average 1-per-decade between the 1930s and 2000s). The musical nominations seem somewhat random. RAGTIME warranted one. I am reluctant to admit (and have never actually seen it), but THE LION KING seemed as revolutionary as RENT [but less heart-breaking].

OUR MUSICAL REPRESENTATIVES:

2010: Next to Normal*

1996: RENT

1985: Sunday in the Park With George*

1976: A Chorus Line

1962: How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying

1960: Fiorello!

1950: South Pacific

1932: Of Thee I Sing*

* = did not win the Tony. However, the Tony Awards didn’t exist when Of Thee I sing premiered, so…

P.S. How did Sunday in the Park win a Pulitzer & not a Tony? It's a DISGRACE.

P.P.S. How did How to Succeed win a Pulitzer? Maybe the subject matter was  revolutionary at the time, but the quality of work doesn't seem all that exceptional. Hmmm...sounds similar to the Pulitzer decision in 1996.

 MY PERSONAL PULITZER UPSETS  

Angels in America: Millennium Approaches [1993] by Tony Kushner. It is brilliant & really did change the world, but was also in contention against Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires in the Mirror. I understand this was a year of stiff competition & know Angels is America was well deserving of the award, but Fires in the Mirror is my very favorite script ever.

I will always feel that Ms. Smith was robbed.

Anna in the Tropics [2003] by Nilo Cruz. To be honest, I am not all-that familiar with this script & it probably ruled; however, I am in love with the two scripts that it beat out [The Goat or Who Is Sylvia by Edward Albee & Take Me Out by Richard Greenberg]. The Goat is so innovative & eternally contemporary; Edward Albee is a prince among playwrights & this is one of my favorite scripts (Remy Bumppo did a perfect production last year that reinforced my love). Take Me Out is a smart script & with the cleverest pun of a title. The play was originally produced at the Donmar Warehouse in London (an tiny, impeccable theatre that has excellent taste in script selection; I saw it performed at Philadelphia Theatre Company in 2010 (an awesome regional theatre that has excellent taste in interns). I have a weird appreciation for the marriage/infusion of sports & theatre…it is such a strange but complimentary opposition of ideas that I have never seen fail.

Dating Walter Dante @ Raven Theatre

His first wife may or may not have drowned accidentally...

His second wife is missing...

AND NOW HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND...

I enjoyed this production. The script (fact-based, but we’ll get to that later) was like Special Victims Unit meets Jodi Picoult, provided moments of starting poetry & insight, and created characters that provided the 360 degrees of reaction to a central conflict. The set was forgettable & the costumes were fine. I did like the idea of costuming entirely in grayscale shades to accentuate the shadowy shades of truth.

Kristin Collins played Laura Bakersfield, our leading lady & central protagonist. She was just great in her multi-faceted performance as an authentically contemporary broad, a hopeful/hopeless romantic, & an endearing individual. In the role of our antagonist & title character, Jason Huysman could have played a bolder Walter Dante; he lacked a positive or negative charge, so seemed annoyingly neutral in his role of the possible serial killer. He was sufficient, but sufficiency does not quite suffice in such a complicated & central role. Brigitte Ditmars & Michael Boone played Suzanne & Harper Liff, Laura’s best friend & her husband. She was GREAT; he was good. As a couple, their conversation was infused with a familiar intimacy. As individuals, she seemed more at home in her role whereas he seemed like he was acting a little too much.

Scott Allen Luke played Sam Brunner, Laura’s ex-husband who still felt a sense of protectiveness over her. His performance was adequate but lacked a certain punch & authenticity. Antoine Pierre played Whitfield Russell Gibbs, the cop actively pursuing Walter Dante. He provided strong punctuating moments & I wish he’d had more stage time. Stacie Barra played Ellen, the active & present ghost of Walter’s first wife who drowned in their pool. Her role was a strange & complicated character (the ghost of a woman who doesn’t know how she was murdered & can’t shake the hold the living commit upon her). She grew on me because she was so strongly committed to her character & created a character that was striking & 3-D, despite being a ghost. She created a woman I could have envisioned alive. I wish she her costume & styling were more striking manner, but her acting & interpretation were dead-on [pun intended].

The Elephant in the Theatre

The minimalist program desperately needed a note from the playwright or director. Chicago-based playwright Jon Steinhagen unabashedly used local non-fiction news as an inspiration for his recent Blizzard ‘67. The inspiration for this script should have been as equally openly-acknowledged. Maybe the facts behind the fiction were swept under the rug because the inspiration is contemporary & the victims‘ families are still in the thick of things; maybe because the inspiration was based on horrific crimes rather than an event naturally/organically; maybe it was a thoughtless oversight by the director. Even if the inspiration is if-y, facts are facts & paying audience members deserve as much knowledge as a theatre can share, which is why…THIS PRODUCTION NEEDED A DRAMATURGE.

Dramaturgy is an emerging field & new necessity for theatres in the post-9/11 world where audiences are smarter & need facts behind the fiction. Their primary role is to provide research & reference to enrich the experience/production for the actors, production staff, & audience. During the summer of 2005, I interned in Dramaturgy at Philadelphia Theatre Company. The play was The Beauty Inside by Catherine Filloux & the production opened in conjunction with NYC’s New Georges’ Theatre. The play centered on a 13-year-old Turkish girl who survived an honor killing & the American lawyer who takes on her case, despite the fact that the girl sides with the family that tried to kill her. My research included interviews with honor killing survivors, activists working with the U.N., imagery of contemporary Turkey for the design teams, & script stuff (dialect/definition/vernacular). This information was integral to the production because the production staff was so wholly committed to respecting & representing the authenticity of the world within the script.

As a non-native to Chicago & someone who was not wholly familiar on the Peterson case prior to seeing the show, my experience as an audience member would have improved exponentially from the infusion of the dramaturge’s efforts. I love research-based scripts & wish I had gone into the theatre knowing that’s what I was seeing. A dramaturge’s research would have helped the actors infinitely as well (I’m envisioning the psychology, knowledge on the actual aftermath in the community, & research on the people who lived in that community).