Drama Queen

"In the Heights" on TV and the road

Just a quick late-afternoon heads up, in case the rainy day has you thinking TV tonight:  In the Heights creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda (and his Tony Award-winning show) will be featured from 8 to 9 p.m. on PBS's Great Performances (Ch. 2 in South Florida).  Watch as Miranda talks about the evolution of a hit show that began as a college project at Wesleyan University.

In more Heights-related news, two South Florida actors have been cast in the show's touring company, which begins its journey around the country in Tampa in October.  Both Natalie Caruncho (who will understudy the young female leads) and Oscar Cheda (he'll fill in as the dad/car service owner and the piragua vendor) will be be part of a cast that will play Fort Lauderdale's Broward Center for the Performing Arts March 16-28, 2010.  The two will deepen South Florida's already strong connections to the show:  Musical director/arranger Alex Lacamoire won a Tony for his work on In the Heights, and former Miamians Janet Dacal, Andrea Burns, Carlos Gomez, Nina Lafarga, Tony Chiroldes, Joshua Henry and Afra Hines were all part of the original Broadway cast.

Raúl Esparza ties a Tony record

I'm in New York this week, seeing seven of the shows vying for various Tony Awards; taking the train out to the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J., to see Miami playwright Tarell McCraney's "Brother/Sister Plays" trilogy; doing various interviews (including chats with former South Floridian Marc Kudisch, Tony nominee for 9 to 5: The Musical, and Colombian hottie Sofia Vergara, soon to open in Miami in Chicago).  I'm alsoceleb-spotting:  In addition to the famous folks I'm watching onstage (Marcia Gay Harden, James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis, all Tony nominees for their work in Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage; a radiant if dance-challenged Allison Janney, another Tony contender, in 9 to 5), I saw former Alias star and Broadway veteran Victor Garber when I had dinner at Bond 45 last night.

I also caught up with Raúl Esparza, the former Miamian who has become a Broadway star and frequent Tony nominee.  He's in contention again this year, this time for the leading actor in a play Tony for his searing performance in the now-closed revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow.  And with that nomination, Esparzaties a record held by Boyd Gaines:  The two are the only actors to be nominated in every Tony category for which a male actor is eligible.  But Esparza did it faster.

Gaines, who has won four Tonys and was nominated for a fifth, won his first in 1989 for his featured performance in the play The Heidi Chronicles.  He won again in 1994, for his leading work in the revival of the musical She Loves Me; again in 2000, for his featured performance in the musical Contact; was nominated as lead actor in a play in 2007 for Journey's End; and won again in 2008 for his featured performance in the revival of the musical Gypsy.

Esparza has yet to take home a Tony, though it seems inevitable that, sooner or later, he will. He tied Gaines' record in just six rounds of Tony nominations:  in 2004, as featured actor in a musical for Taboo; in 2007, as leading actor in a musical for Company; in 2008, as featured actor in a play for The Homecoming; and this year as leading actor in a play for Speed-the-Plow, which got loads of press for Jeremy Piven's controversial early exit from the show (he said his docs said the mercury level in his blood was dangerously high).

Esparza and costar Elisabeth Moss (of TV's Mad Men) finished out the limited run, first opposite Norbert Leo Butz, then with Mamet veteran William H. Macy in Piven's role.  But Esparza got the stellar reviews and yet another Tony nomination.  He's not expecting to win -- he thinks the voters will go for Geoffrey Rush in Exit the King -- though of course he'd love to hear his name called when the winner is announced at Radio City Music Hall June 7.  He's already in rehearsals for his next show, the production of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at Central Park 's Delacorte Theater June 10-July 12 (he'll play Orsino to Anne Hathaway's Viola).

But no matter how it goes at this year's Tony ceremony, the versatile Esparza has every reason to savor his record-tying nomination.

Jerry Herman wins another Tony

Nominations for the 63rd annual Tony Awards will be announced bright and early Tuesday morning by Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon and In the Heights creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.  You can bet that the two former Tony winners (she got it for Rabbit Hole, he for Heights, which will hit South Florida next season) will look impossibly perky that ungodly hour when most normal theater folk are still fast asleep.

Jumping the gun in several non-competitive categories, the Tony folks on Monday announced the winners of four special awards.  The prestigious 2009 Tony for Lifetime Achievement goes to the University of Miami's own Jerry Herman, whose string of Broadway hits as a composer-lyricist includes Hello, Dolly! and Mame and La Cage aux Folles.  Herman, for whom UM's Ring Theatre is now named, is a member of the Theatre Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and he has already collected Tonys for Dolly! and La Cage. But this one has to be special.

Each year, the American Theatre Critics' Association offers the Tony committee a recommendation for the Regional Theatre Tony Award.  This year's winner is the Signature Theatre of Arlington, Va.  Under the artistic leadership of Eric Schaeffer, the 20-year-old company has turned its suburban Washington D.C. home into a place where new musicals are developed and where established musicals are freshly interpreted -- the work of Stephen Sondheim in particular. 

Also being honored at this year's Tonys is actress Phyllis Newman, who receives the new Isabelle Stevenson Award for her work raising more than $3.5 million for the Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative of the Actor's Fund of America.  And press agent Shirley Herz, a theater publicist for more than half a century, receives the Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theatre.

The Tonys will be broadcast from Radio City Music Hall on CBS-TV from 8 to 11 p.m. June 7.  For more information on the awards and nominations, visit the Tony Awards web site.

Seasons announced, altered; UM does "Dolly"

 The Raymond F. Kravis Center in West Palm Beach books its own Broadway series, and its big 2009-2010 lure is the same show that has been a sold-out bonanza for the Broward Center this season -- the Tony Award-winning Jersey Boys.

The Kravis on Broadway series begins Nov. 10-15 with the revival of Grease featuring American Idol winner Taylor Hicks.  Next comes the lavish, Tony-winning revival of South Pacific Jan. 5-10, followed by A Chorus Line Feb. 2-7, Jersey Boys March 10-28 and the dance show Burn the Floor May 4-9, 2010. 

Subscriptions range from $146 to $420, but sales to the general public don't begin until July 27.  Call 1-800-572-8471 or visit the Kravis web site.

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Manalapan's Florida Stage has announced its summer musical, a theatrical concert titled Some Kind of Wonderful!by Bill Castellino and Christopher McGovern, the team behind the theater's recent hit Cagney!.  It's a collection of songs from the "Camelot" years of 1960-63, music made popular by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, The Beatles, The Tempations, The Supremes, Connie Francis, Wilson Pickett, the Drifters, the Four Seasons and others.  The show runs July 1-Aug. 30, with previews at 8 p.m. July 1-2, 2 p.m. July 2.  Performances are 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday-Sunday.  Tickets are $45 for matinees and week nights, $48 other shows (previews $38).  Call 1-800-514-3837 or visit the Florida Stage web site.

Florida Stage has also delayed next season's production of Deborah Zoe Laufer's Sirens;instead, the company will present Seth Rozin's new play Two Jews Walk into a War..., one of four world premires on its 2009-2010 lineup.  The company's next season begins with Rozin's play Oct. 21-Nov. 29, followed by Carter W. Lewis' The Storytelling Ability of a BoyDec. 9-Jan. 17, Israel Horovitz's Sins of the Mother Jan. 27-March 7, Dr. Radioby Castellino and McGovern March 24-May 2, and Christopher Demos-Brown's When the Sun Shone Brighter May 12-June 20, 2010.

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The University of Miami is doing its big spring musical -- Hello, Dolly! -- at the theater named for UM grad and Dollycomposer Jerry Herman.  Leah Costello, Kaitlyn O'Neill and Gianmarco Soresi play Irene, Dolly and Cornelius in the show, which is at the Jerry Herman Ring Theatre, 1312 Miller Dr. on UM's Coral Gables campus, through May 2.

Performances are 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.  Tickets are $18-$22 (seniors, faculty, staff and alumni pay $16-$18; students pay $8-$10).  For information, call 305-284-3355 or visit the Ring web site.

Spidey does Broadway

If Shrek can do it, so can Spider-Man.  The guy best known from comic books and mega-hit movies is coming to Broadway in January 2010.  And the cred of its creative team is pretty major --  music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge of U2 fame, direction by Tony Award winner Julie Taymor, script by Taymor and playwright Glen Berger.

On their to-do list:  find a cast.  To that end, Telsey + Company is doing casting calls in Orlando, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and Austin.  And Orlando's up first, this Thursday, April 9, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Orlando Marriott World Center, 8701 World Center Dr.

The team is looking for someone to play Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man; his girlfriend Mary Jane; and the lead female villain.  The first two should be 16 to 20-something, the bad gal from 25 to 35.  All need powerful rock voices.

For info, e-mail  SpiderManCasting@gmail.com or visit the show's web site.

For big bucks, big stars

Recession? What recession?  For New York's Roundabout Theatre Company, a glamorous and star-studded spring fundraiser dubbed "Take Me Back to Manhattan" is the only way to go -- especially with tickets priced from $1,500 (the evening's cheap seat) to $5,000.

The glitzy get-together, which takes place at 7 p.m. April 6, is hosted by Tony Award winner and former Producers star Nathan Lane (one of the stars of Roundabout's Waiting for Godotrevival), whose way with a quip guarantees many an unscripted zinger.  The company's well-heeled supporters will gather at the Roseland Ballroom, transformed into a nightclub circa 1940.

Tony-winning director Kathleen Marshall has created an original revue featuring the songs of Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and others.  And the talent scheduled to perform is, if you have the bucks, certainly worthy of $1,500 and up per person:  Audra McDonald, Boyd Gaines, Bill Irwin, Matthew Broderick, Cynthia Nixon, Richard Thomas, Michael Cerveris, Kelli O'Hara, Martha Plimpton, Jane Krakowski, Brooke Shields, Margaret Colin, Alec Baldwin, Mario Cantone, Denis O'Hare and South Florida's own Katie Finneran.

If you can be in New York that night, want to support the not-for-profit Roundabout and find the idea of an elegant throwback of an evening appealing, call Ashley Firestone at 212-719-9393 or visit the gala section of Roundabout's web site.

Losing Natasha Richardson

A sad story came to a tragic end on Wednesday when Natasha Richardson, a luminous actress who came from a distinguished family of actors, died after what at first seemed to be a minor tumble on a Montreal ski slope two days earlier.

Richardson -- granddaughter of Sir Michael Redgrave, daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson, niece of Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, sister of Nip/Tuck's Joely Richardson, wife of Liam Neeson and mother of two boys -- was 45, a woman with so much life and work ahead of her.  Her sudden passing is shattering for her family, a loss for anyone who had the pleasure of watching her work.

Richardson was rumored to be planning a return to Broadway in a revival of A Little Night Music next season.  She and her famous mother had done a benefit performance of the Stephen Sondheim musical in January, and that got the buzz going. 

I was fortunate enough to see three of the four New York shows in which Richardson starred:  1993's revival of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, the show that brought Neeson into her life; 1998's revival of Cabaret, which brought her a Tony Award for her portrayal of a beautiful, plucky, ruined Sally Bowles; and Patrick Marber's Closer in 1999.  She made movies too, of course, everything from the fluff of The Parent Trap and Maid in Manhattan to the intensity of Suddenly, Last Summer and Asylum.

But above all (at least in her working life), Richardson was third-generation theater royalty.  Watching her on a stage was illuminating, absorbing, special.  And forever memorable.

Something's coming

Broadway circles are abuzz in anticipation of Thursday's opening of West Side Story, a groundbreaking Broadway classic directed -- and reimagined by -- the author of its book, 90-year-old Arthur Laurents.  Of course, the 1957 original is a musical reinvention of Romeo and Juliet,with teen gangs the Sharks and the Jets standing in for the warring Capulets and Montagues.  But with its thrilling Leonard Bernstein score, lyrics by then-Broadway newcomer Stephen Sondheim, stunning choreography by Jerome Robbins and Laurents' heart-breaking script, West Side Story has remained an enduring piece of theatrical art.

The twist at Broadway's Palace Theatre is that the Puerto Rican Sharks and their family members actually speak and sing in Spanish.  Not all the time, but enough so that West Side Storyreportedly feels much more authentic.  Josefina Scaglione (shown in a Joan Marcus photo, with Matt Cavenaugh as Tony), the show's Maria, is a 21-year-old opera-trained Argentine actress, and a number of her cast mates are Latino performers.  The new dialog and lyrics are by Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator and star of last season's Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights.

In South Florida, a different, more traditional but decidedly younger West Side Story will play six performances beginning March 27.  The Roxy Theatre Group, a non-profit training program for kids and teens, has a large-scale production in the works: 75 cast members ages 11 to 17, representing more than 25 schools, singing and dancing to the accompaniment of the Greater Miami Youth Symphony.  Monica Rosell, a junior at Southwest Miami Senior High School, and Kevin Yungman, a sophomore at Cypress Bay High, play Maria and Tony. 

Roxy's West Side Story, which benefits the group's student scholarship fund, runs March 27-April 5 at 1645 SW 107th Ave. in Miami.  Performances are 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday.  Tickets are $20 ($50 opening night tickets include a cocktail reception and post-show party).  For information, call 305-226-0030 or email SusannePinedo@gmail.com.

See Mickey, be Billy?

The most spectacular kid's part on Broadway at the moment is the title role in Billy Elliot the Musical.  The boy who plays young Billy, a kid from a British mining town who dreams of ballet stardom, has to dance (ballet, tap, street dancing), act (with an accent), sing and be able to handle gymnastics.  He is onstage for nearly all of the Elton John-Lee Hall show, performing six musical numbers.  Because of the role's demands, three different young dancer-actors play the role each week (Trent Kowalik, one of the Broadway Billys, is shown here in a photo by Carol Rosegg).

Because the show is a smash likely to run for a long time, its producers are in search of new Billys because, well, kids do grow.  Casting reps are coming to Orlando on Saturday, March 7, to hold auditions for boys ages 9 to 12 at the Orlando Ballet School's south location, 7600 Dr. Phillips Blvd., with sign-up beginning at 1:30 p.m.  The show is looking to cast boys in the starring role and the part of Billy's friend Michael.

The basic requirements are that the auditioner be a strong dancer who can sing, no taller than 4'10", no broken voices.  Each Billy hopeful should bring a recent photo, sneakers (plus tap and ballet shoes if possible), drinks, a snack and comfortable clothes (no leotards/tights).  The kids will learn the audition piece and need to be able to stay all day if necessary.

Think this might match up with the talents of a kid you know? Visit the Be Billy web site for more information.

Showtunes get a folksy spin

Like the Carbonell Awards voters who have honored Rachel Jones with three awards (and four additional nominations), I have always loved hearing this talented actress sing.  The first time I remember seeing her, she was in a wondrous production of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris with her parents, actors Mona and Dennis Jones.  She was a teen then, but her clear voice was already beautifully distinctive.

Jones has chalked up numerous theatrical achievements in the ensuing years, both in her native South Florida and elsewhere: doing Rent in Berlin, appearing on Broadway in Meet Me in St. Louis and The Boys from Syracuse, playing Hodel to Theodore Bikel's Tevye in a touring Fiddler on the Roof, starring as Anna opposite Lou Diamond Phillips in The Kind and I in Dallas, playing the title role in Evita (in English and Spanish) at Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables.  Her most recent South Florida gig was in Actors' production of Urinetown last season, a performance that won her another Carbonell.

Now, under the name Rachel Bay Jones, the actress turns to a reinterpretation of theater songs on her debut solo CD ShowFolk.  Working with producer David Truskinoff, guitarist Bobby Baxmeyer, fiddle player Sam Bardfeld and other folk/bluegrass pros, Jones puts a folk spin on 11 songs from Broadway shows, some obvious candidates for that treatment, some not.  You'll hear Breeze Off the River from The Full Monty (my favorite cut); Little Bird, Little Bird from Man of La Mancha; Lucky To Be Me from On the Town; Stars and the Moon from Songs for a New World; The Streets of Dublin from A Man of No Importance by Stephen Flaherty (who calls her performance of the song "a revelation"); Left Behind from Spring Awakening; For Good from Wicked; Gonna Build a Mountain from Stop the World -- I Want To Get Off; Where, Oh Where (Is My Baby Darlin'?) from The Robber Bridegroom; Wicked Little Town from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and a haunting Another Day from Rent.

You can sample the CD on Jones' website, at CD Baby or iTunes.  South Florida fans of Jones' theater work -- and anyone who loves pure, folk-flavored singing -- should enjoy listening.