RIP James Whitmore (1921-2009)Tony Award-winning acting great
James Whitmore has died at the age of 87.
Long before
Will Ferrell began impersonating U.S. Presidents, Whitmore took on two of America's best loved chief executives:
Teddy Roosevelt in
Bully (Broadway and film, 1977) and
Harry S. Truman in "
Give 'Em Hell Harry" (film, 1975), earning one of his two Academy Award nominations for the latter.
With a penchant for portraying historical characters, Whitmore also performed in the title roles in
Will Rogers' USA (Broadway, 1974) and "
The Adventures of Mark Twain" (
animated film, 1986).
But it was his 1947-48 Rialto role in
Command Decision as Tech Sergeant Harold Evans that Whitmore earned his one and only Tony Award as Best Newcomer.
Although I regret never having had the opportunity to see this distinguished actor live on stage, I was a fan ever since his early 70s television stint as Dr. Vincent Campanelli in the comedy "
Temperatures Rising." But it was his turn as cowboy-friendly farmer Andrew Carnes in the 1955 film version of
Oklahoma! for which I'll remember him best.
Rest in peace, James Whitmore.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: Bully, Command Decision, Give 'Em Hell Harry, Harry S. Truman, In Memoriam, James Whitmore, Oklahoma, Teddy Roosevelt, Will Rogers USA
Are Blogs Making The Time-Honored Preview Obsolete?Remember the "good old days" of theatre when bad news traveled at such a snail's pace that a stinker show could go through an out-of-town tryout and few in the Big Apple would pay any serious attention?
Time was when producers, directors, writers and the actors could work out all the kinks on the road, or at least during the all-important lead-up to the big Broadway opening night.
But no more.
Now, thanks to the blogsphere, the buzz (or its antithesis) begins almost as instantly as one audience member begins acting as scribe, letting friends and readers far and wide know exactly what he or she thought. Essentially, shows can run, but they can't hide, in part due to the global proportions of blogging.
For example, last week, I posted my
SOB Preview of Young Frankenstein. It's the first time I've ever blogged about a show that had not yet opened -- including during its trial run in a city far, far away from the bright lights and glare of the Great White Way. Yet, simply because I could, I did. And my regular readers, along with those googling "Young Frankenstein Seattle Review," could easily find out my take on the unfinished product. Indeed, my statcounter has shown that this has been one of my top-viewed postings of late.
Already, according to a cursory search on
Technorati, there are well over 100 individual reviews of the same show. This, despite the fact that it hasn't even opened yet in Seattle, let alone New York.
The net effect? It's further threatening the relevance of mainstream news media outlets all the more, as
Seattle Times theatre critic
Misha Berson all but acknowledges in her thought-provoking piece on why she's not able to weigh-in on the show. No matter that the Internet is already full of reviews -- both good and bad -- by amateurs like myself. It reduces venerable news sources to being also-rans.
I suspect that the other effect is far greater. Could it force productions to significantly pare back previews or scuttle them altogether? Ironically, in the aforementioned good old days, the typical number of previews prior to opening night was miniscule or non-existent.
Can you believe that the original production of
Oklahoma! never had a single Broadway preview prior to its 1943 opening night? Contrast that with the
most recent production -- which was imported from the British stage in 2002 -- that had 25 previews. That's up substantially from the
1979 production, which had a mere nine previews.
Consider that the original 1975 production of
A Chorus Line, which transferred directly from the Public Theatre, had no previews. Yet the
current production, known for being staged ostensibly the same as the first one, had 18 previews.
If you're thinking that a transfer mitigates the need for lengthy previews, think again. This year's Tony Award winning Best Musical
Spring Awakening, which transferred from a highly successful run at the Atlantic Theatre (albeit with further refinements), still required 28 previews.
In fact, if you were to add up all the preview nights of all 21 shows currently running on Broadway, you'd have a grand total of 566 nights of previews, or just over 26 per show. That ranges from the inexplicably low 14 previews of
Mamma Mia! to the outrageously long gestation period for
Xanadu, which clocked in a whopping 49 previews thanks to injuries.
Even recent runs of acclaimed plays were close to the average in terms of previews.
Frost/Nixon had 23 previews on Broadway, despite its critical success in the United Kingdom with the same two principals.
The History Boys, which had the exact same cast as its heralded National Theatre and West End runs, apparently still needed its 10 previews on the Great White Way.
Or did it?
In the age of the blogosphere, are previews now living past their shelf date? Since bad news travels faster than ever, almost with glee if the show's particularly awful (read:
The Pirate Queen), would producers at the very least be wise to reconsider their liberal use of the preview?
You tell me! Vote in my latest SOB Poll and then weigh in with your point of view below.
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
Labels: A Chorus Line, Blogs, Broadway, Frost/Nixon, Mamma Mia, Oklahoma, Previews, Spring Awakening, The History Boys, Tryout, Xanadu, Young Frankenstein
Will It Play in Peoria? How About Iowa?Going all the way back to the days of vaudeville circuits, a common refrain to measure broad-based success -- particularly among podunk* towns -- was to ask, "
Will it play in Peoria?" With today's broad communications ranging from television to Internet to, yes, the touring companies of Broadway shows, our world is smaller than ever. Yet, I profess to being surprised whenever I learn just how broad-based the appeal of Broadway actually is.
Fast forward to this past Saturday and a mere 209 miles north-northwest of Peoria, Illinois to the quaint small town Decorah, Iowa, where I attended a good old-fashioned farm-family wedding. Much to my pleasant surprise, my dinner table discussion drifted to which Broadway shows were worth seeing -- and no, I did
not initiate the topic!
Now, it should be noted that there is an interesting pedigree on the young groom's side of the family.
First, his great-great uncle was writer Philip Stong, who penned the best-selling, Iowa-based "State Fair" novel from 1932.
"State Fair" was such a proven success that it became the basis for a top movie in 1933 with
Janet Gaynor,
Will Rogers and
Lew Ayres; the film earned two Academy Award nominations including for Best Picture.
Then in 1945, to capitalize on the unparalleled success that Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II enjoyed through
Oklahoma!, "State Fair" was translated into a movie musical in 1945, starring
Jeanne Crain,
Dana Andrews,
Dick Haymes and
Vivian Blaine; that silver screen version won Rodgers and Hammerstein their first Academy Award for Best Original Song, "It Might as Well Be Spring." (My mother, who's
completely unrelated to the aforementioned farm family, once told me that this was the very first movie she ever saw, and she remembers it fondly.)
In 1962, a remake of
"State Fair" landed at cinemas across the country with
Pat Boone,
Bobby Darin and
Ann-Margret. And finally, in 1996, a Broadway incarnation of
State Fair finally blossomed with John Davidson, Kathryn Crosby (wife of the late Bing Crosby), Andrea McArdle and Donna McKechnie. While the tuner received two Tony nominations -- including, incredibly enough, for Rodgers and Hammerstein in the Best Original Score category despite the fact that the music was not specifically written for the stage -- the show was no match for the season's light-years-ahead contemporary
Rent.
State Fair closed after a mere 110 performances at the Music Box Theatre.
Another part of the groom's interesting pedigree is his grandmother. She's the modern-day folk hero Norma "Duffy" Lyon, who's perhaps better known as
The Butter Cow Lady for making life-sized sculptures out of butter for nearly 50 years at the very same Iowa State Fair mentioned above. Not only has she been featured on NBC's
"Today" show and
David Letterman, but she was also on
"To Tell The Truth." It was during that appearance some 40 years ago that regular guest panelist
Kitty Carlisle Hart correctly guessed who she was after asking, "Which type of cow is the only one to have brown eyes?" Duffy Lyon answered, "Jerseys."
So with a "six degrees of separation" scenario dancing in my head, I shouldn't have been taken aback that there would be such genuine interest in theatre
even in Iowa, despite the crowd and locale. We talked at length about
Cats (with the exception of one lone
Cats lover, the show was universally panned by this unlikedly group of critics),
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (my seat mate told me how she had gone to Broadway to see
Mamma Mia! only to find it sold-out, so she took the recommendation of a friend and saw the show with
Norbert Leo Butz and
John Lithgow instead and
loved it), and invariably
Wicked and
Rent.
Most telling was when my seat mate told me how addictive she found live theatre and how each performance she takes in makes her want to go see yet another show. If there's this much enthusiasm for the art of theatrical performances in small town, "fly-over" country, Broadway producers should be able to sleep a little easier knowing that there is a such vast market for what they do that movies and television can never take away.
As for the old line, "Will it play in Peoria?" The answer appears to be a resounding, "Yes!"
This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).
* The etymology of Podunk actually comes from the name of a small village in Massachusetts as well as a locality in Connecticut.Labels: Broadway, Cats, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Mamma Mia, Musical, Oklahoma, Rent, Special Messages, State Fair
Tarzan Swings Into Broadway TonightDisney's latest animated movie feature turned Broadway production --
Tarzan -- opens tonight at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. If advance ticketing is any indication, this will be a huge hit. With a score written by Phil Collins,
Tarzan's movie incarnation was about the last major old-school animated success for Disney. Collins has written more tunes for the stage version that includes newcomer -- OK, direct from "American Idol" -- Josh Strickland in the title role. In the supporting cast, look for Tony Award winner Shuler Hensley, who winningly brought new emotional depth to Jud Fry in the West End and Broadway's last version of
Oklahoma a few years back. We'll see tomorrow which way the critical reviews swing for this umpteenth version of the classic jungle story.
Click here for tickets.Labels: Broadway, Disney, Film, Musical, Oklahoma, Opening Night, Phil Collins, Tarzan
