Tag Archives: Lilli Cooper

THE TENTH ANNUAL SHORT NEW PLAY FESTIVAL: PRIVATE LIVES

short new play festival

Who: Ali Ahn, Frankie J. Alvarez, Kathleen Chalfant, Lilli Cooper, Edmund Donovan, William Jackson Harper, Louisa Jacobson, Peter Francis James, Charlayne Woodard
What: Tenth annual Short New Play Festival
Where: Red Bull Live
When: Monday, July 20, free (donations accepted), 7:30 (stream can be viewed for four days)
Why: Theaters are traditionally dark on Mondays, but Red Bull has turned that night into must-see virtual evenings, with high-quality live reunion readings (The Government Inspector, Coriolanus, The Witch of Edmonton) and RemarkaBULL Podversations, in which actors (Chukwudi Iwuji, Elizabeth Marvel, Stephen Spinella, Kate Burton, Michael Urie) recite famous Shakespeare soliloquies and then discuss them. Next up is the tenth annual Short New Play Festival, which is also going virtual as a benefit fundraiser. The theme this year is, appropriately enough, “Private Lives,” inspired by Noël Coward’s 1930 comedy of manners, since we are all living rather private lives these days during the pandemic lockdown. The festival will be livestreamed on July 20 at 7:30, featuring new commissions by established playwrights Jeremy O. Harris (Slave Play, Daddy), who will premiere Fear and Misery of the Master Race (of the Brecht), and Theresa Rebeck (Seared, Seminar), who will present Something in the Ground, in addition to new work by emerging playwrights chosen through an open submission process: Ben Beckley’s Outside Time, without Extension, Avery Deutsch’s Old Beggar Women, Leah Maddrie’s Love — Adjacent, or Balcony Plays, Jessica Moss’s In the Attic, Matthew Park’s Plague Year, and Mallory Jane Weiss’s Evermore Unrest. As you can tell by the titles, the impact of the coronavirus crisis is likely to figure prominently. The outstanding cast consists of Ali Ahn, Frankie J. Alvarez, Kathleen Chalfant, Lilli Cooper, Edmund Donovan, William Jackson Harper, Louisa Jacobson, Peter Francis James, and Charlayne Woodard, with direction by Vivienne Benesch, Mêlisa Annis, and Em Weinstein.

BROADWAY FANTASY CAMP: BROADWAY BANTER SAFE-AT-HOME

Jenn Colella will Zoom in from home for Broadway Fantasy Camp (photo © Matthew Murphy)

Who: Laura Osnes, Telly Leung, Jenna Leigh Green, Santino Fontana, Jenn Colella, Lilli Cooper, Chilina Kennedy, Lesli Margherita, Karla Garcia, Corey Cott, more TBA
What: Broadway Fantasy Camp
Where: Broadway Fantasy Camp Zoom room
When: May 30 – July 1, $25
Why: Broadway Fantasy Camp usually takes place at Sardi’s, where fans can get up close and personal with some of their favorite stars. With the Great White Way dark because of the pandemic, one of the cornerstones of the annual event, now rechristened “Broadway Banter: Safe-at-Home,” has moved online, where you can spend an hour on Zoom with a Broadway star, joined by no more than forty-nine other guests. The performers will talk about their career, from their debut to onstage mishaps to how they are coping during the coronavirus crisis, followed by a Q&A, so have your questions ready. The sessions, which cost a mere $25 each, are scheduled for May 30 to July 1 and feature an impressive roster: Laura Osnes, Telly Leung, Jenna Leigh Green, Santino Fontana, Jenn Colella, Lilli Cooper, Chilina Kennedy, Lesli Margherita, Karla Garcia, and Corey Cott. For every twenty-five tickets sold, a free ticket will be donated to a hospital worker. “The Broadway community leads the way in being generous and sensitive to the human condition,” Broadway Fantasy Camp founder and producer Lauren Class Schneider said in a statement. “Broadway Fantasy Camp is humbled to include hospital workers in our audience as they continue to serve on the frontlines across the country and around the world.” Tony nominee Colella added, “I’m looking forward to creating a community through ‘Broadway Banter.’ It’s not just a Q&A session. . . . I want to hear my fans express in their own voices how they are feeling during this time and what they are doing to stay creative. I want us to create a dialogue together to lift one another up in this very strange time. The opportunity to ‘hang out’ with my fans and for them to get to know one another makes my heart soar.”

TOOTSIE THE MUSICAL

Michael Dorsey (Santino Fontana) and Jeff Slater (Andy Grotelueschen) lament their situations in Broadway musical adaptation of Tootsie (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Marquis Theatre
210 West 46th St. at Broadway
Tuesday – Sunday through December 22, $79-$469
tootsiemusical.com

Robert Horn moves Sydney Pollack’s 1982 hit, Tootsie, from television soap opera to self-reflective Broadway musical in the book for the Broadway musical adaptation of the film, a ten-time Oscar nominee, continuing at the Marquis Theatre through December 22. The movie starred Dustin Hoffman as Michael Dorsey, an impossibly difficult thespian who dresses as a woman, Dorothy Michaels, to land a job on a daytime soap; he lives with his goofy best friend, Jeff Slater (Bill Murray), is close with his ex-girlfriend, determined actress Sandy Lester (Teri Garr), and falls for one of his costars, Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange). In the Broadway version, Dorsey/Michaels is played with flair and panache by Santino Fontana, who dresses as a woman to play the nurse in Ron Carlisle’s (Reg Rogers, who was played in the movie by Dabney Coleman) disastrous musical sequel to Romeo & Juliet entitled Juliet’s Curse. (The role of Julie’s father, who has the hots for Dorothy and is played in the film by Charles Durning, is excised from the show.) Fontana changes hair and costumes at near-record pace as he flits between his ever-growing role onstage while trying to maintain his offstage relationships and keep his ruse a secret from everyone except Jeff (Andy Grotelueschen).

Dorothy Michaels (Santino Fontana) has some pointers for Julie Nichols (Lilli Cooper) as they rehearse Juliet’s Curse (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Michael battles on-set with the womanizing Carlisle; angers his agent, Stan Fields (Michael McGrath, in a very different role from the agent played by Pollack in the film); auditions for the same part Sandy (Sarah Stiles) covets; and haplessly attempts to woo Julie (Lilli Cooper). While the arc of his instant success worked in the movie more than three dozen years ago, it often strains credulity here, particularly during the show-within-a-show’s opening night. But getting there can be lots of fun, with antic choreography by Denis Jones and tongue-in-cheek music and lyrics by David Yazbek, although Scott Ellis’s (The Elephant Man, Kiss Me, Kate) direction is bumpy and inconsistent, Simon Hale’s orchestrations of the ballads are overly conventional, and Dorsey is occasionally too unlikable as the production stumbles over making itself relevant in the #MeToo generation.

Sandy Lester (Sarah Stiles) wears her heart on her sleeve as Jeff (Andy Grotelueschen) looks on in Tootsie (photo by Matthew Murphy)

Tony nominee Stiles (Hand to God, Avenue Q) nearly steals the show as the desperate Sandy, bringing the house down with “What’s Gonna Happen?,” documenting her futility in both life and career; Tony nominee Rogers (Holiday, The Royal Family) is appropriately slimy as the sleazy, self-important director; Fiasco veteran Grotelueschen (Into the Woods, Cyrano de Bergerac) is warm and funny as Jeff; and Julie Halston (On the Town, Anything Goes) supplies solid support as producer Rita Marshall. William Ivey Long’s costumes and Paul Huntley’s hair and wig design are absolutely fabulous, and David Rockwell’s constantly-in-motion set has its own choreography. There was a sweet, unscripted incident the night I went, the first performance after the production had been nominated for eleven Tonys; when Stan tells Michael he might be up for a Tony, the audience burst into spontaneous applause for several minutes as Fontana (Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Brighton Beach Memoirs), who earned a well-deserved nod for Best Actor in a Musical, sheepishly grinned and blushed: a meta-moment in a production built around its own kind of meta.

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL

The cast of SpongeBob SquarePants jumps for joy as disaster threatens in Broadway extravaganza (photo by Joan Marcus)

Palace Theatre
1564 Broadway at 47th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 2, $49-$145
spongebobbroadway.com

When a volcano threatens to destroy the undersea community of Bikini Bottom, the motley crew of residents must come together in order to survive in the tons-of-fun Broadway extravaganza SpongeBob SquarePants. Conceived and directed by Tina Landau based on Stephen Hillenburg’s long-running tongue-in-cheek cartoon series, which debuted on Nickelodeon in 2003, the musical version is a delight for both kids and adults. Tony-winning scenic designer David Zinn (The Humans, Fun Home) has transformed the Palace Theatre into a fanciful wonderland of undersea detritus hanging from the walls and ceiling and extending off the stage, complete with two huge Rube Goldberg-like machines on either side. Zinn also designed the costumes, keeping them relatively simple, primarily humans with playful elements: SpongeBob portrayer Ethan Slater, in his stirring Broadway debut, is dressed in a yellow shirt, red tie, plaid pants, and knee-length socks, speaking and singing in the cartoon character’s squeaky high-pitched voice; Danny Skinner wears a Hawaiian shirt over a purple tee, bright shorts, and slicked-up hair as SpongeBob’s BFF, the dimwitted but lovable Patrick Star; as crooning octopus Squidward Q. Tentacles, Gavin Lee has an extra pair of legs; Brian Ray Norris as money-loving Krusty Krab owner Eugene Krabs has two giant red claws for hands; Jai’len Christine Li Josey as sperm whale Pearl is dressed like a high school cheerleader; and Lilli Cooper as the squirrel scientist Sandy Cheeks is an astronaut with an Afro. The main cast is rounded out by Wesley Taylor as the evil, eye-patch-wearing villain Sheldon J. Plankton, who wants everyone to eat at his awful Chum Bucket restaurant instead of the Krusty Krab; Stephanie Hsu as his wife, the futuristic-looking Karen the Computer; Gaelen Gilliland as the mayor, who tweets in nonsensical political double talk; Kelvin Moon Loh as television reporter Perch Perkins, who is tracking the volcano’s progress as doomsday beckons; Gary, the mewing snail, who is not played by a person; and Jon Rua as Patchy the Pirate, the president of the SpongeBob SquarePants Fan Club, whose memorabilia is on view in front of the stage on the left side. With the countdown clock ticking down, SpongeBob, Patrick, and the rest of the benthic town desperately try to come up with a plan to save Bikini Bottom before it is laid to waste.

The devious Sheldon J. Plankton (Wesley Taylor) is up to no good in SpongeBob SquarePants (photo by Joan Marcus)

Obie-winning book writer Kyle Jarrow (The Wildness, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant) tosses in a plethora of puns and looming darkness, never passing up the chance for a good laugh, even if it’s aimed at the show itself. “A fry cook is all you’ll ever be. You’re just a simple sponge, boy,” Mr. Krabs says to his employee-of-the-month, SpongeBob, continuing, “And yet somehow you don’t seem to absorb very much.” Later, Squidward tells SpongeBob, “The world is a horrible place filled with fear, suffering, and despair. Also dashed hopes, shattered dreams, broken promises, and abject misery.” But ever the positive trooper, the Aplysina fistularis known as SpongeBob replies, “But it’s our horrible place . . . with the best abject misery.” The narrative breaks down significantly in the second act, but Christopher Gattelli’s (The King and I, War Paint) jubilant choreography keeps everything bouncy, and the music sparkles throughout, with songs written by a diverse superstar lineup that soars far above standard Broadway fare, including David Bowie and Brian Eno, Panic! at the Disco, Yolanda Adams, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, They Might Be Giants, T.I., Lady Antebellum, John Legend, the Plain White T’s, Cyndi Lauper and Rob Hyman, Sara Bareilles, Jonathan Coulton, and the Flaming Lips. Show up early to get a good look at all the crazy items around the theater — what’s with all the 1980s boomboxes? — and to get in the mood as the small band plays tropical music. Landau (Big Love, Old Hats) keeps everyone on their toes — watch out as some characters go running up and down the aisles — and smiling for more than two hours. And just to reiterate, the show is not aimed only at kids; the night we went, there were not that many children at all, the audience peppered instead with grown-ups of all ages, rolling around laughing in their seats. Like the Nickelodeon show, the Broadway musical is downright silly, but as Patrick says, “There’s nothing more fun than mindless entertainment.” Amen to that.

THE WILDNESS

Lauren Worsham is the pregnant ringleader of Sky-Pony’s delightful indie-rock fairy tale, THE WILDNESS (photo by Ben Arons)

Ars Nova
511 West 54th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Monday – Saturday through March 26, $36
212-352-3101
arsnovanyc.com
www.sky-pony.com

Brooklyn-based eight-piece collective Sky-Pony presents a captivating treat for adventurous theatergoers with the DIY indie-rock opera The Wildness, which has been extended at Ars Nova through March 26. A collaboration with the Play Company, The Wildness is a multimedia fairy tale that filters such popular musicals as Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell through a Narnia-like aesthetic and video-game narrative that fantasy fans will go ga-ga over. The premise is that a group of “agnostic, generally apathetic millennials” is putting on its fifth annual ritual, known as the Wildness, in order to “purge out doubts and fears.” But their leader and founder, Michael, is missing, so they forge ahead without him. Everyone plays two characters, one a member of Sky-Pony, the other in the fable. Tony winner Lauren Worsham (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) serves as the host and plays Zira, a villager who accompanies Ada, the messianic princess (Lilli Cooper), on her dangerous travels through the Wildness, where they discover a mysterious cabin, belonging to “the builder,” filled with strange objects. We are told that the role of Ada is usually performed by Michael, but Lilli, his sister, has stepped in at the last minute, starting off by delivering the invocation: “Here’s to the artists, freaks, and wanderers too, we dedicate tonight to you.” The cast also includes Katie Lee Hill and Sharone Sayegh as handmaidens and backup singers, David Blasher as the cellist and the Powerful But Aging Ruler, and Obie winner Kyle Jarrow as the keymaster and the Voice from the Boombox, with Jamie Mohamdein on bass, Kevin Wunderlich on guitar, and Jeff Fernandes, wearing a Mr. Tumnus headpiece, on drums and playing villagers as well. Over the course of ninety minutes, the story explores faith and doubt, fear of death, sin and forgiveness, temptation and salvation, the coming rapture, wandering blind, and adherence to the old ways, haunted by a prophecy: “The spring turns foul when our faith falters / only the blessed heir can make it pure again. / On sunrise of the second day of the third week of the fourth moon, / Ada will lead us into a rapturous new era.”

Sky-Pony struts its stuff in multimedia indie-rock opera at Ars Nova (photo by Ben Arons)

Religious references abound throughout The Wildness, which is divided into twelve sections, although it is no mere tent revival. Ada is identified as “the blessed heir with the facial hair”; Ada and Zira have names that evoke the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; several characters and two audience members deliver “overshares,” public confessions with a decidedly twelve-step edge; and Ada and Zira find a book in the cabin that changes everything. The Wildness is also very much about the fear of growing up, of the millennial generation staring adulthood in the face. Tony-nominated director Sam Buntrock (Sunday in the Park with George, Turn of the Screw at BAM) lets Sky-Pony strut its stuff, keeping up a rollicking, frolicking pace. The musical numbers, some of which appear on Sky-Pony’s debut album, December 2015’s Beautiful Monsters, include “The Lost Ones,” “The Waltz of the Inevitable Triumph of Doubt,” “Dragon,” and “Everyone Will Die,” with videos appearing on the many monitors throughout the space, which has been transformed by Kris Stone; a long, narrow stage (reminiscent of a cross?) cuts the theater in two, with the audience seated on both sides, either on ottomans or comfy couches. Tilly Grimes’s costumes are steampunk hip, Chase Brock’s choreography is fun, Sara Morgan’s props are utterly charming (oh, that miniature cabin on the ceiling!), and the clever text, by husband-and-wife Jarrow and Worsham (who, in a neat twist, is pregnant), is playfully self-referential. “I’m doubting whether I can pull off these sequin panties,” Lilli opines at one point. In the fifth section, Lauren says, “Ada’s mind was filled with questions. Her father had taught her about the Wildness that trapped them in their troubled village. But no one had actually seen a dragon. Could it be they weren’t there at all?” Lilli responds, “Zira didn’t wonder this. She knew we believe in many things we don’t see.” It’s a statement that sums up what the Wildness, and life itself, is really all about.