Kristin Salaky - Page 12

If the old chestnut about life imitating art doesn't cross your mind a couple of times during A.R. Gurney's new comedy, Buffalo Gal, you may want to make a copy of The Cherry Orchard part of your subway reading this week. But brushing up your Chekhov isn't completely necessary to enjoy this funny little character study where the Russian playwright's story of the cultured aristocracy falling to the vulgar values of the middle class is replaced by a struggle for artistically conscious live theatre to survive while uninspired sitcoms rake in the bucks and offer immediate stardom.

An orchestra ticket for Thurgood, with one actor and a modest set, costs nearly as much as one for August: Osage County, which has a large cast and an elaborate design. Orchestra seats for [title of show] aren't much cheaper than those for The Lion King. With Broadway prices what they are, do you want to see where your money went when you attend the theatre? Or is that less important than great material and wonderful performances? Let us know at our new poll.

Playgoers with fond memories of wholesomely sexy television comedies like Love, American Style and The Love Boat may get a kick out of Flamingo Court, Luigi Creatore's trio of one-acts about romance among elderly Florida retirees. The octogenarian playwright most known to Broadway audiences for having co-written the book, music and lyrics for Maggie Flynn (ya gotta love a guy who can get a musical about the New York Draft Riots to Broadway) Creatore may not have written the laff-riot of 2008, but the evening is often very sweet and amusing, especially when he's not making fart jokes.

Early arrivals to the McGinn/Cazale for Second Stage's Theatre Uptown production of Animals Out Of Paper can fill up their spare minutes by folding up a creation or two with the free origami paper made available in the lobby. Or, if you're like me, just admire the pieces already on display.

As someone who gets a euphoric high from that strict-tempo ritard the orchestra takes toward the end of Fade Out-Fade In's overture, who considers the Broadway cast album of One Night Stand to be the perfect road trip CD and who more than once has been moved to get in front of a mirror and mime Nancy Dussault's performance of 'Love Is A Chance' while listening to Bajour, you might expect me to fit snugly into the target audience for [title of show], the musical where conversation between stars/authors Hunter Bell (bookwriter) and Jeff Bowen (composer/lyricist) is peppered with so many obscure (and some not so obscure) musical theatre references that you'd swear you just stumbled into a midnight cabaret act at Don't Tell Mama or The Duplex (a/k/a everyday martini talk at Marie's Crisis). Yes, after months of promotional YouTube videos promising it would happen, the Twenty-First Century's Montgomery and Stone have finally landed their ninety minute musical on Broadway, and to paraphrase what Gracie Allen said about Jumbo, if it continues running for as long as it hasn't been running it should be a great success.

Although that bountiful cornucopia of high praise, John 'I Loved It!' Simon, chose to heap lavish compliments on those he saw as standouts with his usual critical generosity, I'd rather not review the performances showcased by Scott and Barbara Siegel in their second annual concert of new talent, Broadway's Rising Stars. Oh, if I did, words like dazzling, beautiful and heartfelt would certainly come to mind, but I'd rather see last Monday night's show as a celebration of all the new faces without comparing their abilities at this early stage of their careers.

Though idiots like the academic assortment of Richard Nelson's Some Americans Abroad, his 1989 satire of Yankee cultural self-loathing, may be high on Gilbert and Sullivan's Lord High Executioner's little list of those whose loss would be a distinct gain to society at large, this verbose crew would undoubtedly escape the axman's blade. After all, they have tenure. And just like, as one character argues, a life sentence with no chance of execution gives a convict the freedom to kill a prison guard without fear of harsher punishment, tenure is the desired life sentence that defends these plastic-souled elitists against the consequences of their own ignorance.

This New York Observer feature on 'New Old Gays' confuses me. Do you have to actually be homosexual to be considered a New Old Gay? Because the writer is describing me and about half of my straight male friends.

Grease? Legally Blonde? Pretty obvious choices, if you ask me. If we must cast Broadway shows through TV reality programs, how about considering some of the choices in our new poll?

The word 'ridiculous' carries a certain reverence in theatre circles and when Duncan Pflaster calls his new play, Prince Trevor Amongst The Elephants, 'a big epic naked ridiculous Shakespearean fairy tale play for adults,' those in the know catch it as a bow to the late, great Charles Ludlum. For twenty years, until his AIDS-related death in 1987, playwright/actor Ludlum was the major force in a theatre movement that had Brendan Gill of The New Yorker pronounce, 'This isn't farce. This isn't absurd. This is absolutely ridiculous!'

The title character - well, actually the title prop - of Sam Shepard's new entry, Kicking a Dead Horse, doesn't have to lift a hoof to make an impressive star entrance. Lying beneath a sheet that covers the entire curtain-less stage as the audience enters The Public's Martinson Hall, the slow deliberate removal of its covering at the play's commencement tantalizes viewers until we get what we came to see; a big dead piece of symbolism placed somewhat to the left of center stage. Also revealed at that moment are two large mounds of dirt suitable for tandem mountings of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days. The wide open spaces prairie scene, put together by designers Brien Vahey (set) and John Comiskey (lights) has a kind of respectful artificial beauty to it, similar to the environmental displays you might see at New York's American Museum of Natural History.

Perched above the stage in their private bleacher section, just beyond an outfield fence graffitied with the musical's title, conductor Rob Berman and his 25 piece Encores! Summer Stars orchestra might be mistaken for the conservatory cousins of Brooklyn's legendary Dodger Sym-Phony. But instead of serenading umpires from the Ebbet's Field grandstands with double forte arrangements of 'Three Blind Mice,' the musicians of director John Rando's cracker-jack production of Damn Yankees - a 1955 musical that opened in the early weeks of the baseball season that saw Brooklyn beat the Yankees for the borough's only World Series championship - treats 21st Century audiences to that thrilling sound of a Broadway Golden Age orchestra. The detailed movements and textures contained within Don Walker's orchestrations, whether giving comic accents to the pepper-upper 'Heart,' setting a satirical mood for the pseudo-vamp 'Whatever Lola Wants' or lifting a slow ballad like 'A Man Doesn't Know' with phrases that search the mind of the singing character, help bring majestic touches of artistry to this rousing vaudeville disguised as a book musical.

The last two Tonys for Best Score went to shows with lyrics that did not always strive for perfect rhyming. Is that bad for Broadway or simply an accurate reflection of what is acceptable in today's popular music? Let us know in our new poll.

The last time I reviewed the cabaret antics of singing comedians Booth Daniels and Patrick Frankfort, a/k/a Booth & Pat, the description, 'The Smothers Brothers on crystal meth,' entered the picture. In their new gig, Slow Children Playing, which has one more scheduled performance at The Duplex on June 20th, it seems the boys have upped the dosage.

I don't take pleasure in anybody's death; not even the death of someone who trampled on the rights of free speech in order to prevent funding for art that he considered to be obscene. I'm sure he felt he was doing the right thing for the country I have no reason to doubt he loved.

Our new poll concerns some of our great Broadway veterans who, amazingly, have yet to win their first Tony Award. Who would you like to see finally win the big prize? The versatile actor, John McMartin? Mega-popular composer/lyricist (and once nominated as a co-bookwriter), Stephen Schwartz? The prolific costume designer, Jane Greenwood? Musical theatre icon, and now stage director, Julie Andrews? Or pick your favorite Broadway vet who you think most deserves the spinning trophy.

Backtrack a little to the night of June 1st (or just click here if you prefer) and remember how I described the scene at the York Theatre's Mufti production of Minnie's Boys when the curtain was held because 21 people were stuck in the theatre's elevator. Well, wouldn't you know, somebody happened to have a video camera with him and recorded the scene from the inside. I'm just a little disappointed that none of these musical theatre fans stuck in an elevator thought of singing, 'I'm The Bravest Individual.'

The history of Broadway's attempts to make commercially successful sequels of hit musicals is not a pretty one. But the Opening Doors Theatre Company, now in its second season at The Duplex staging pocket-sized versions of some of Broadway's most beloved flops, can offer a fabulously fun time from even the most legendary disaster. Having premiered their Closing Notice series a year and a half ago with Bring Back Birdie, this small but increasingly impressive company headed by Producer/Artistic Director Suzanne Adams now offers a fast and funny mounting of The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public.

After earning high accolades from its appearances in both New York and Toronto's Fringe Festivals and winning a Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) award for 'fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation,' the Canadian-created BASH'd: A Gay Rap Opera has moved to the Zipper Factory Theatre for an Off-Broadway run. And while this imaginative and theatrically invigorating celebration of gay marital rights and condemnation of random acts of hatred certainly has its heart in the right place, the awkward sympathy of the story's ending prevents me from giving the show a fully enthusiastic recommendation. I'll try and tiptoe my way through that part later without revealing too much, but first let me tell you about the 90% of the show that comes off extremely well.

Plenty of musicals have tried to pass themselves off as 'the musical for people who don't like musicals' in order to bring new audiences to Broadway, but those apparent geniuses at [title of show] have figured out that there are people who hate Broadway musicals so much that they'd be willing to shell out big bucks in order to not see one. So, in a special premium ticket plan announced this afternoon, for a mere $2,501.50, you can get a great seat for [title of show] and then have an NYU student watch the show for you and tell you about it later. (You know, so you don't embarrass yourself in case Marian Seldes just happens to come up to you at Bar Centrale and ask what you thought of it.)