Kristin Salaky - Page 4

While I certainly wouldn't suggest that Andrea McArdle has been living in the past, that's where she's spent most of her Broadway career; first getting noticed as the Depression-era social climber in Annie, and then nabbing roles in Les Misérables, State Fair and Beauty and The Beast (Hey, 'once upon a time' counts as the past.); not to mention playing young Judy Garland in the TV bio-pic, Rainbow. (Taking a cigarette break along the way to play Ashley in Starlight Express.

The star of Town Hall's 3rd Annual All Singin', All Dancin', the traditional finale to the Scott Siegel-created Broadway Summer Festival, didn't take the stage until the end of curtain calls, but his vibrant presence was felt throughout the evening.

Let's get one thing straight right from the start. Men do not write monologues about their penises. They don't. Men don't say things like, 'I'm worried about penises,' and they don't require a context of other penises in order to understand this limb that dangles between their legs and jumps up like a puppy whenever it wants to play. We don't think of our genitals as a dark Bermuda Triangle; more like the sleek and powerful jet that's headed its way.

I suppose the cocktail conversation among certain factions of the Off-Broadway community this summer will be centered around whether the ending of Lila Rose Kaplan's Wildflower a) thoroughly ruined the play, b) logically brought all the play's diverse pieces together or c) was just another example of the evening's well-intentioned flaws. I lean toward the latter.

The 2009-10 Broadway season began with a shirtless man and a bikini-clad woman posed dramatically under a spinning disco ball. Soon after, similarly underdressed performers danced their way up and down the aisles of the Longacre Theatre in displays that suggested over-caffeination more than artistry.

A good musical will often send audience members out of the theatre wanting to pick up a copy of the cast album. But the new musical version of Jack Heifner's 1976 Off-Broadway hit, Vanities, might send more than a few attendees to the public library to read a copy of the playscript, or at least hope for a full-on revival of the musical's source.

While the title of Town Hall's third annual production of Broadway's Rising Stars suggests a look into the future, I prefer to linger a bit in the present. With a cast consisting of 22 recent grads from such musical theatre savvy institutions as NYU, Carnegie Mellon, AMDA and The Cincinnati Conservatory, all hand picked by creator/writer/host Scott Siegel, his partner in both life and reviewing, Barbara, plus directors Emily Skinner and Scott Coulter, this was a night to treasure the youthful love of the type of songs and the styles of singing that have helped make musical theatre this city's major export to the world.

'If they don't know who the hell I am by now,' the evening's star deadpans to the Metropolitan Room staff member who asks if she has any press releases to distribute, 'they can just cut open my neck and count the rings.'

You know it's all heading in this direction, don't you? So why delay the inevitable and let's make 2010 the first year where America Votes For The Tony Awards!

The marquees of Broadway will once again dim tonight; not to honor a great actor or playwright or director but to commemorate the passing of Harry Edelstein, owner of the theatre district's legendary Café Edison.

Have you ever sat in on a production of Moliere's classic comedy Tartuffe and wondered what exactly it was about the religious services of the title character that made the wealthy Orgon want to donate everything he had to his church? Me neither. But apparently playwrights Alfred Preisser and Randy Weiner have and their answer is the Classical Theater of Harlem's crazily entertaining semi-spoof, Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe.

How much you wanna bet the Weisslers will have Sarah Palin signed to play Roxie on Broadway by the end of next week?

The entirety of The Public Theater's positively scrumptious new Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night is played on and around designer John Lee Beatty's grassy field, which is dominated by two large hills. It's the kind of setting that might remind you of dozens of locales in Central Park where brave little tykes might scurry down the steep inclines or where lusty couples might settle down for a quick afternoon make-out session or where a toddler's parent might amuse his kid by popping his head out from behind the soft green hiding place. It's a playground and director Daniel Sullivan - who incorporates all the above in his lighthearted staging - seems to have encouraged his delightful company to play, making an all-star cast of theatre pros (joined by a movie star ringer with legit experience) charm like a summer stock company showing off their youthful enthusiasm.

While collectors of musical theatre trivia may be quick to mention that Anika Larsen - the cherubic-looking blonde with the belty R&B voice - was the only performer to be in both the original Broadway cast of Xanadu and the original Off-Broadway cast of Zanna, Don't!, it's her unusual upbringing that supplies the real fun facts in her very enjoyable and even thought-provoking bio-musical, Shafrika, The White Girl.

Along with contempt, familiarity is also pretty good at breeding hit Broadway musicals. Take The Wiz, for example; the perfectly pleasant but sketchily written 1975 Tony winner for Best Musical that, if it weren't based on L. Frank Baum's classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (which became an iconic American story once MGM got its hands on it), would probably leave audiences completely baffled as to what the devil was going on.

One of the unique and cherished aspects of the musical theatre is how the preceding plot and character development can allow a musical moment to achieve ethereal heights that establish a triumvirate of joyful feeling between audience, performer and character. Take, for example, Amalia Balash's dizzying high note at the end of 'Vanilla Ice Cream,' which is not just a showy moment for the actress playing the role, but a release of amazed emotions caused by a simple act of kindness. Or the wacky exuberance of the impromptu tango that follows Eliza Doolittle's mastery of the proper pronunciation of an Iberian precipitation phenomenon.

While the casting of Phylicia Rashad as the manipulative, pill-addicted matriarch of Oklahoma's abundantly dysfunctionAl Weston family in Tracy Letts' epic comedy/drama, August: Osage County may seem an odd choice for those who only know the actress from her television roles as the elegant Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show and... uh... Clair Huxtable II on Cosby, she might be considered a natural for the part by New York playgoers who have seen her rip up the stage as the anguished and dominating Bernarda Alba or have observed her communicating silent volumes as a symbol of African heritage in Gem of the Ocean.

If you're old enough to recall the pre-Jimmy Carter era of American comedy, when dark pieces like Jules Pfeiffer's Little Murders and Robert Altman's MASH drew humor from a sense of being emotionally anaesthetized from the ugliness of your surroundings, you may be tricked into assuming that Theresa Rebeck's Our House is a revival of some long-forgotten black comedy with an outlandish portrayal of television news that grew more realistic decades later. But this is a new piece premiering at Playwrights Horizons and despite some high moments, some clever lines and a sharp, sexy production helmed by Michael Meyer, Our House ends up seeming innocuously nostalgic and satirically toothless.

Just in time for the centennial of the great lyricist's bar mitzvah, Mark Nadler arrives at The Metropolitan Room with a smashing celebration of the words of Ira Gershwin. Titled ...His Lovely Wife, Ira, after an infamous fopaux made by a British radio announcer, Nadler explains his mission here is to explore beyond the 'indelible ampersand attaching him to George' and honor the elder Gershwin's brilliance outside of his more gregarious brother's shadow.

While the situations presented by playwright Geoffrey Nauffts in his drama Next Fall are certainly realistic, the evening suffers from a steady feeling of contrivance as the storytelling pieces fall too neatly into place and a nagging sense that the playwright has avoided certain obvious issues that would add some needed depth to the piece.