Tag Archives: Kenny Leon

BOOK LAUNCH: TRANSFORMING SPACE OVER TIME

Who: Beowulf Boritt, James Lapine, Susan Stroman, Elliott Forrest
What: Book launch
Where: The Drama Book Shop, 266 West Thirty-Ninth St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
When: Tuesday, October 11, $35 (includes copy of book), 7:00
Why: “My goal is to couple thematically evocative visuals with a considered transformation of the physical space as the story plays out. Set design is a kinetic sculpture that is constantly being manipulated to enhance the emotions and narrative of the story: transforming space over time. Thematic evocation and spatial transformation are my tools to create an intellectual concept to guide the scenery and support the story. Once that concept is clear in my mind, I can envision the style of the set: literally, what it will look like. When the process goes well, the frosting really does enhance the cake.”

So writes Tony- and Obie-winning set designer extraordinaire Beowulf Boritt in his new book, Transforming Space Over Time: Set Design and Visual Storytelling with Broadway’s Legendary Directors (Globe Pequot / Applause, August 2022, $34.95). The tome features conversations between Boritt (Act One, The Scottsboro Boys, The Last Five Years) and six theater greats he has worked with either on Broadway or off: James Lapine, Kenny Leon, Hal Prince, Susan Stroman, Jerry Zaks, and Stephen Sondheim. The book is a celebration of the art of creation and collaboration; it will have its launch October 11 at 7:00 at the Drama Book Shop, where Boritt will be joined by Lapine, Stroman, and Peabody-winning moderator Elliott Forrest. Tickets are limited and include a copy of the book.

BROADWAY’S BEST SHOWS: SPOTLIGHT ON PLAYS

BROADWAY’S BEST SHOWS
Discounted tickets available through March 21, $49
Streaming begins March 25 (each show available on demand for four days)
www.broadwaysbestshows.com
www.stellartickets.com

Last fall, Broadway’s Best Shows hosted “Spotlight on Plays,” a series of all-star staged virtual readings, taking actors out of Zoom boxes and filming them in more theatrical settings. Among the offerings, for $5 each, were Gore Vidal’s the Best Man with John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Vanessa Williams, Zachary Quinto, Phylicia Rashad, Reed Birney, and Elizabeth Ashley; Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth with Lucas Hedges, Paul Mescal, and Grace Van Patten; David Mamet’s Race, with David Alan Grier, Ed O’Neill, Alicia Stith, and Richard Thomas; Mamet’s Boston Marriage with Patti LuPone, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Sophia Macy; Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya with Alan Cumming, Constance Wu, Samira Wiley, K. Todd Freeman, and Ellen Burstyn; Donald Margulies’s Time Stands Still with original cast members Laura Linney, Alicia Silverstone, Eric Bogosian, and Brian d’Arcy James; and Robert O’Hara’s Barbecue with Colman Domingo, S. Epatha Merkerson, Tamberla Perry, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Heather Simms, Laurie Metcalf, Carrie Coon, David Morse, Kristine Nielsen, and Annie McNamara. Sorry you missed that, yes?

Fortunately, Broadway’s Best Shows is now back for another round of online productions, seven plays that can be purchased for $49 total through March 21, after which tickets can be bought individually, at a higher per-show cost. The presentations begin March 25, with each play available for four days. It’s another impressive lineup: Meryl Streep, Bobby Cannavale, Carla Gugino, Mary-Louise Parker, Kevin Kline, Debbie Allen, Ellen Burstyn, Keanu Reeves, Kathryn Hahn, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, Heidi Schreck, Alia Shawkat, Heather Alicia Simms, Stith, and others will be appearing in Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play, directed by Leigh Silverman (March 25), Pearl Cleage’s Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous, directed by Camille A. Brown (April 9), Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine, directed by Sarna Lapine, Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders, directed by Kenny Leon, Sarah Ruhl’s Dear Elizabeth, directed by Kate Whoriskey, Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, and Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosensweig, directed by Anna D. Shapiro. All proceeds go to the Actors Fund, which provides “emergency financial assistance, affordable housing, health care and insurance counseling, senior care, secondary career development, and more . . . to meet the needs of our entertainment community with a unique understanding of the challenges involved in a life in the arts.”

FORWARD. TOGETHER.

Who: Jelani Alladin, Jacqueline Antaramian, Antonio Banderas, Laura Benanti, Kim Blanck, Ally Bonino, Danielle Brooks, Jenn Colella, Elvis Costello, Daniel Craig, Alysha Deslorieux, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Holly Gould, Danai Gurira, Stephanie Hsu, David Henry Hwang, Oscar Isaac, Nikki M. James, Alicia Keys, John Leguizamo, John Lithgow, Audra McDonald, Grace McLean, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kelli O’Hara, Mia Pak, Suzan-Lori Parks, David Hyde Pierce, Phylicia Rashad, Liev Schreiber, Martin Sheen, Phillipa Soo, Meryl Streep, Trudie Styler, Sting, Will Swenson, Shaina Taub, Kuhoo Verma, Ada Westfall, Kate Wetherhead
What: Virtual celebration and fundraiser
Where: Public Theater, Facebook, YouTube
When: Tuesday, October 20, free (donations accepted), 8:00
Why: Originally planned for June 1 but delayed because of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Public Theater is now holding its gala fundraiser online on October 20. “Forward. Together.” features appearances and performances by a wide range of actors, musicians, playwrights, and other creators, sharing songs and stories, from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Antonio Banderas, Elvis Costello, Daniel Craig, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and John Leguizamo to Danielle Brooks, Jenn Colella, Audra McDonald, Phillipa Soo, Meryl Streep, and Suzan-Lori Parks, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. One of the highlights will be Jelani Alladin performing a brand-new song from the Public Works production of Hercules. The cochairs are Kwame Anthony Appiah, Candia Fisher, Joanna Fisher, Laure Sudreau, and Lynne Wheat, honoring Audrey and Zygi Wilf and Sam Waterston; the evening is directed by Kenny Leon, with music direction by Ted Sperling.

Admission is free but donations will be accepted; twenty-five percent of the proceeds will go to eight Public Works partner organizations and Hunts Point Alliance for Children. You can also participate in the online auction, where you can bid on such items as a virtual conversation with Queen Latifah and Lee Daniels, a coffee chat with Liev Schreiber, ten years of premium reserved tickets to the Delacorte for Shakespeare in the Park, a private Zoom cooking class with Andrew Carmellini, and lunch (on Zoom or in person) with Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis. The Public has presented several outstanding productions during the pandemic, including The Line, What Do We Need to Talk About?, and the current audio play Shipwreck, so give if you can to help support this ongoing dream from Joe Papp.

HOW I MISS BROADWAY

Hillary Clinton will discuss how much she misses Broadway in livestreamed New York Times discussion

Who: Hillary Clinton, Audra McDonald, Danielle Brooks, Jessie Mueller, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Paulson
What: New York Times Offstage event
Where: New York Times online
When: Thursday, October 1, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: In February 2017, I was at the Palace Theatre, waiting for Sunset Boulevard, the musical with Glenn Close, to start. We all soon realized why the curtain was being delayed: Hillary Clinton was just coming in, being ushered to her orchestra seat. The applause was enormous, lasting several minutes in an outpouring of love and respect for our near-president; in fact, it was the best part of the evening. Hillary, with and without Bill, is a Broadway regular; on October 1 at 7:00, she is the centerpiece of the livestreamed discussion “How I Miss Broadway.” The New York Times “Offstage” event will be moderated by theater reporter Michael Paulson; after the initial talk, they will be joined by six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald (Porgy and Bess, Master Class), Tony nominee Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple, Much Ado About Nothing), and Tony winners Jessie Mueller (Waitress, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) and Neil Patrick Harris (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Cabaret). Registration is free; Broadway may be dark because of the pandemic, but this should be a cathartic experience bringing part of the theater community together for an evening.

The Times’s “Offstage” series kicked off June 11 with “Opening Night: Explore Broadway as It Was, Is, and Will Be,” featuring critic at large Wesley Morris speaking with Adrienne Warren, Daniel J. Watts, Celia Rose Gooding, and Kenny Leon, followed by discussions with Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, Sonya Tayeh, and Jeremy O. Harris and performances by Mary-Louise Parker, Elizabeth Stanley, Mare Winningham, and the casts of Company and Six. You can watch that presentation here.

WE ARE ONE PUBLIC

Who: Todd Almond, Troy Anthony, Antonio Banderas, Laura Benanti, Kim Blanck, Ally Bonino, Danielle Brooks, Michael Cerveris, Glenn Close, Jenn Colella, Elvis Costello, Daniel Craig, Claire Danes, Danaya Esperanza, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jane Fonda, Nanya-Akuki Goodrich, Holly Gould, Danai Gurira, Anne Hathaway, Stephanie Hsu, David Henry Hwang, Oscar Isaac, Brian d’Arcy James, Nikki M. James, Alicia Keys, John Leguizamo, John Lithgow, Audra McDonald, Grace McLean, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Margaret Odette, Sandra Oh, Kelli O’Hara, Mia Pak, Suzan-Lori Parks, David Hyde Pierce, Jay O. Sanders, Liev Schreiber, Deandre Sevon, Martin Sheen, Philippa Soo, Meryl Streep, Trudie Styler, Sting, Will Swenson, Shaina Taub, Kuhoo Verma, Ada Westfall, Kate Wetherhead, more
What: Virtual gala celebrating the Public Theater and special honorees
Where: Public Theater website, Facebook, YouTube
When: Monday, June 1, free with RSVP (donations accepted), 8:00
Why: Among the cultural institutions I miss the most during the pandemic is the Public Theater. Founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 as the Shakespeare Workshop and located on Lafayette St. since 1967, the Public features six spaces for theatrical productions including Joe’s Pub, home to cabaret, comedy, and concerts as well. In addition, the Public has been offering us Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte for nearly sixty years; this summer’s scheduled shows were Richard II and As You Like It in addition to Cymbeline from the Mobile Unit.

The Public, which has been streaming previous performances from Joe’s Pub and presented the best new Zoom play about the pandemic, Richard Nelson’s What Do We Need to Talk About?, available on demand through June 28, will hold its annual fundraising gala online on June 1 at 8:00, a virtual ninety-minute, one-time-only cavalcade of stars honoring actor Sam Waterston and philanthropists Audrey Wilf and Zygi Wilf. Cochairs Kwame Anthony Appiah, Candia Fisher, Joanna Fisher, Laure Sudreau, and Lynne Wheat have amassed quite a lineup, with appearances by Glenn Close, Elvis Costello, Daniel Craig, Claire Danes, Jane Fonda, Anne Hathaway, Oscar Isaac, Alicia Keys, John Leguizamo, John Lithgow, Audra McDonald, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Sandra Oh, Kelli O’Hara, David Hyde Pierce, Liev Schreiber, Martin Sheen, Meryl Streep, Sting, and many more. (The full lineup is above.) The evening will be directed by Kenny Leon and hosted by Jesse Tyler Ferguson, with music direction by Ted Sperling; the event is free, but donations are accepted to support the Public, one of New York City’s genuine treasures.

A SOLDIER’S PLAY

Capt. Richard Davenport (Blair Underwood) and Pvt. James Wilkie (Billy Eugene Jones) watch Sgt. Vernon C. Waters (David Alan Grier) in flashback in A Soldier’s Play (photo by Joan Marcus)

American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 15, $59-$299
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

Perhaps no one knows Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play better than David Alan Grier, even more so than Fuller himself. In the show’s original 1981-83 Negro Ensemble run, which earned Fuller the Pulitzer Prize and featured Adolph Caesar, Denzel Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson, Grier replaced Larry Riley as Pvt. C. J. Memphis. In Norman Jewison’s 1984 film, starring Caesar, Washington, Riley, Howard E. Rollins Jr., Wings Hauser, Robert Townsend, and Patti LaBelle, Grier played Cpl. Bernard Cobb. And now Grier is taking on the role of controversial sergeant Vernon C. Waters in the show’s Broadway debut, a Roundabout production that moves with expert military precision at the American Airlines Theatre.

It’s 1944, and Waters is in charge of an all-black unit of the 221st Chemical Smoke Generating Company at Fort Neal, Louisiana, under the command of Capt. Charles Taylor (Jerry O’Connell). In the opening moment, a drunk Waters is on his knees on a platform, calling out, “They’ll still hate you!” A shot rings out, and Waters falls dead, murdered in cold blood by an unseen perpetrator. Capt. Richard Davenport (Blair Underwood), a black lawyer attached to the 343rd Military Police Corps Unit, arrives to solve the crime, but the white Taylor has a problem with that.

“I didn’t know that Major Hines was assigning a Negro, Davenport,” Taylor says. “My preparations were made in the belief that you’d be a white man. I think it only fair to tell you that had I known what Hines intended I would have requested the immediate suspension of the investigation. . . . I don’t want to offend you, but I just cannot get used to it — the bars, the uniform — being in charge just doesn’t look right on Negroes!” Taylor attempts to talk Davenport out of accepting the case, in part because of the danger he thinks he will face from the local KKK, but Davenport is not about to be scared into leaving. “I got it. And I am in charge! All your orders instruct you to do is cooperate!” he firmly declares.

Capt. Charles Taylor (Jerry O’Connell) is not thrilled that Capt. Richard Davenport (Blair Underwood) has come to investigate a murder in Roundabout Broadway production (photo by Joan Marcus)

Assisted by Taylor’s right-hand man, Cpl. Ellis (Warner Miller), Davenport begins interrogating the members of the unit, which includes Pfc Melvin Peterson (Nnamdi Asomugha), Pvt. Louis Henson (McKinley Belcher III), Cpl. Cobb (Rob Demery), Pvt. Tony Smalls (Jared Grimes), Pvt. James Wilkie (Billy Eugene Jones), and Pvt. Memphis (J. Alphonse Nicholson), each of whom had a unique relationship with Waters, via their responsibilities to the army as well as through their place on the company’s extremely successful baseball team, as most of them played in the Negro League. Their stories unfold in flashback as Davenport and the witness sit stage right as the captain watches the action take place in the center and at left. Derek McLane’s two-level wooden set switches from the men’s barracks to Davenport’s and Taylor’s offices as chairs and desks are brought on and offstage and beds are pushed from the back to the front, accompanied by sharp lighting by Allen Lee Hughes.

Davenport also speaks with key white suspects Lt. Byrd (Nate Mann) and Capt. Wilcox (Lee Aaron Rosen); the former in particular is an avowed racist with no respect for Davenport. “Where I come from, colored don’t talk the way he spoke to us — not to white people they don’t!” Byrd says about Waters, talking about the night of the killing. Davenport discovers that Waters apparently had many more enemies than friends, resulting in plenty of suspects.

Broadway debut of Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play is set in an all-black army barracks during WWII (photo by Joan Marcus)

Directed with adroit sureness by Tony winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun, American Son) and loosely inspired by Herman Melville’s 1924 novella Billy Budd, A Soldier’s Play is a scorching look at racism, in the military in 1944 as well as today. Waters strongly believes that black men need to rethink their place in society and how they will succeed. “The First War, it didn’t change much for us, boy — but this one — it’s gonna change a lot of things,” he tells Memphis. “The black race can’t afford you no more. There use ta be a time when we’d see somebody like you, singin’, clownin’ — yas-sah-bossin’ — and we wouldn’t do anything. . . . Not no more. The day of the geechy is gone, boy — the only thing that can move the race is power. It’s all the white respects — and people like you just make us seem like fools.” It’s not a position that everyone agrees with, but Grier (Porgy and Bess, In Living Color) handles the role with a grace and intelligence that makes Waters neither hero nor villain, instead a strong-willed individual with a different experience than his fellow soldiers, and a different way of approaching the future.

Underwood (A Streetcar Named Desire, The Trip to Bountiful), whose father is a retired army colonel, is bold and steadfast as Davenport, a fearless man who is going to stand by his convictions and fight for what he’s earned. O’Connell (Stand by Me, Seminar) is resolute as Taylor, who is somewhat caught in the middle, a stand-in for much of America of the 1940s (and today), wrestling with the racism he grew up with while seemingly trying to accept that things are changing. Leon and Fuller (Zooman and the Sign, A Gathering of Old Men) do an excellent job developing the characters, each actor — there are no women in this testosterone-filled tale — getting the chance to speak his mind, wearing Dede Ayite’s effective costumes and eliciting some whoops when taking them off. Now almost forty years old, A Soldier’s Play doesn’t feel dated in the least. In fact, it feels all too of-the-moment, and all too necessary.

THE UNDERLYING CHRIS

New parents (Hannah Cabell and Howard Overshown) marvel at their bundle of joy in The Underlying Chris (photo by Joan Marcus)

2econd Stage Theater
Tony Kiser Theater
305 West 43rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 15, $30-$89
2st.com

In the summer of 2018, Second Stage presented the New York premiere of Tracy Letts’s magnificent Mary Page Marlowe, a ninety-minute intermissionless play in which six actresses portrayed the title character, with a few slight name changes, through eleven nonchronological scenes from her rather ordinary existence. Second Stage is currently running Will Eno’s The Underlying Chris, an extremely clever but not wholly successful eighty-minute intermissionless play in which six actors portray the title character, each time with a slightly different name, through twelve chronological scenes from Chris’s rather ordinary existence. I don’t bring this up to claim that The Underlying Chris is derivative of Mary Page Marlowe, but the similar structure and focus are uncanny as two of the theater’s best writers tackle a similar subject and format.

The Underlying Chris opens with a young girl (Isabella Russo) delivering exit information and introducing the show; she states: “As for the play, the subject is life on Earth. . . . A little more specifically, our story is — it’s a story about, let’s see . . . Identity? Change, maybe. Continuality, if that’s a word. Newness and renewal. Those are words. It’s a story about the moments that shape a life, and the people who shape a moment. And the things we don’t have names for. The essence, I guess, the spirit. And also, mystery. And, meaning.” Having set himself up for big-time responsibility, Eno then proceeds to follow the life of one person from infancy to burial, with a different actor in the title role in each scene, switching genders and color along with names as the protagonist matures from Chris, Christopher, Christine, Kris, and Kristin to Topher, Krista, Kit, Christiana, and Khris, dealing with tragedy, career choices, major and minor milestones, medical conditions, and other key moments that help determine who the character is, was, and will be.

Louise (Hannah Cabell) and Christopher (Luis Vega) discuss their futures in Will Eno play (photo by Joan Marcus)

It’s not always immediately apparent in each successive scene who the “Chris” character is, but there are several threads that continue through the narrative to maintain continuity; in addition to the protagonist’s name, some kind of take on “Chris,” they experience twinges of back pain while also referencing elements from past scenes, which involve such other figures as Dr. Rivington (Howard Overshown), nurse Gabriella (Lenne Klingaman), young Philip (Nicholas Hutchinson), veterinarian Louise (Hannah Cabell), a radio host (Michael Countryman), amateur actor Roderick (Countryman), the elderly Reggie (Charles Turner), and daughter Joan (Russo and Nidra Sous La Terre). Arnulfo Maldonado’s sets change from a living room and a café to a hospital and a park bench, sliding to one side of the stage or the other as a horizontal black curtain opens and closes (not always all the way), as if the audience blinks and time and space magically shift. “I sometimes feel surprised, being here — like I walked through a door into someone else’s life,” Krista (Lizbeth Mackay) says. And Kristin (Sous La Terre) points out, “Bodies come and go, but the spirit, that’s what I was always interested in. Or, the soul, whatever it is, people’s ideas and feelings, the part of people that moves through the world and changes but also lasts,” which gets to the heart of Eno’s central concern: not so much humanity’s physical presence but our essence, our spirit. “I can see your spirit in these pictures. I see your spirit in you,” Jenny (Cabell) tells Christiana (Denise Burse) while looking at family photographs.

Kit (Michael Countryman) and Joan (Nidra Sous La Terre) have trouble at the DMV in The Underlying Chris (photo by Joan Marcus)

Directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun, the complete August Wilson Century Cycle) The Underlying Chris drags too much, repeating itself and never connecting with the audience the way it so desperately wants to, seeming longer than its eighty minutes. The large cast is fine but no one makes that necessary impact, and the pace is choppy. Eno is a brilliant writer, as shown in such previous works as Thom Pain (based on nothing), The Open House, Wakey, Wakey, and his Broadway debut, The Realistic Joneses, displaying a sharp wit and a skillful cunning in storytelling and character development, but there’s a dissociation between the plot and characters in Chris that is never resolved, keeping us at too much of a distance. We never get a firm grasp on Christopher’s identity, and neither does he, which is part of the point but also leaves a dramatic gap. It’s also a bit confusing in that the story takes place in a timeless present; over the course of eighty years, there are no visible social, political, cultural, economic, or, perhaps most evident, technical advances. “Like with evolution, and most other good ideas, we will go forward looking backward, not knowing our destination until the day we get there, or years later or never,” the girl says in her introduction. Despite some engaging moments, The Underlying Chris doesn’t quite reach its desired destination.