There’s more than a plot for revenge being cooked up at the Barrow Street Theatre, where the Tooting Arts Club’s production of Sweeney Todd opens this February. This production immerses audiences in the world of Sweeney Todd by transforming the theater into a functioning pie shop.
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New York is set to see some huge stars take the stage this fall in highly anticipated new productions and revivals. The following four shows are likely to be a hot ticket – so get your tickets now to avoid becoming green with envy.
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Last year, we started this blog with a post of Broadway-inspired Valentine’s Day dates. With a whole year of blogging under our belt, we decided to offer advice for 2016’s hopeful romantics – a new list of 14 theatrical twist to classic date-night activities.
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It’s almost New Years, and that means people around the world will be setting New Years resolutions to stay more healthy and fit in 2016. I’m no doctor, but I’ve come up with a list of four shows I would prescribe to keep you in tip-top shape in the new year.
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Hamilton, the new, hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton from In The Heights composer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, seems to be the only show getting press notice recently. However, the summer mega-hit is about to meet some new neighbors, as seventeen productions have announced opening nights between September and December. To kick off the start of the fall 2015 Broadway season, I’ve highlighted four productions (one from each category) which I consider “must sees.”
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It’s the second week of February and love is in the air! If your Valentine’s date is a theater-goer, you may find it is hard to compete with your date’s first love – the theater. We hope these 14 theatrical twists on classic date-night activities will help you please your loved one’s theater bug.
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“An Upset,” a one-act play by David Auburn first seen in New York in 2008, is being revived around the city timed to the Open, including three shows at 99 Bowery beginning Sept. 12.
“It’s always hard to put a finger on why something is suddenly in the zeitgeist,” said Ruhl, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a Tony Award nominee. “I don’t know why it is happening with tennis in theater right now. But for me, while researching the Bush dynasty, I realized tennis is such a big part of their lives and a wonderful metaphor for family competition and sibling rivalry.”
In “Scenes From Court Life,” Greg Keller plays George W. Bush as a more shrewd politician than his brother Jeb but an inferior tennis player.
“Athletes are almost another species to playwrights,” Keller said. “The writer’s world is so subjective, but for athletes there is always a winner and a loser.”
Tennis holds undeniable appeal for the theater. For starters, it can encompass widely different settings, including the Bush family compound, the public courts of the Lower East Side and Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Tennis, Keller said, is also “one-on-one, but you are not physically touching each other like in boxing.”
He added, “You are in your own little world.”
Bragen has written other works about tennis, including a monologue called “Game, Set, Match.” He said the sport offered intimacy and isolation — great fodder for writers.
“There’s a kind of dance that I feel as a player, but you are alone in your own head at the same time you are connected to other person,” Bragen said.
Ruhl said she liked the combat mixed with decorum, “the formality within the structure of competition.”
Ryan Sweeney, who played Division I tennis at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is producing and starring in “An Upset,” said, “Tennis is a lonely sport, and Auburn’s script touches on the players’ vulnerabilities.”
