Center Theatre Group News & Blogs

Nathan Lane in previews for ‘The Nance’ at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Nathan Lane in previews for ‘The Nance’ at Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre

Nathan Lane stars as Chauncey Miles in Douglas Carter Beane's new play, The Nance, a re-creation of "the naughty, raucous world of burlesque's heyday." The Lincoln Center Theater production tells the "backstage story of Chauncey Miles and his fellow performers ... at a time when it is easy to play gay and dangerous to be gay."

Directed by Jack O'Brien with sets by John Lee Beatty and costumes by Ann Roth, the show officially opens Monday, April 15.

You can learn more about The Nance at Lincoln Center Theater's YouTube channel, where the author and cast discuss the historical context of the show, its costume and set design, and the origins of "the nance" as a campy vaudeville stereotype.

‘Spring Awakening’ at La Mirada Theatre until March 30

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

‘Spring Awakening’ at La Mirada Theatre until March 30

It was more than four years ago that Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's Tony Award-winning musical transfixed Ahmanson Theatre audiences with its fresh, original score and groundbreaking story. Diehard fans of the musical can relive the magic between now and March 30 at the La Mirada Theatre.

Directed by Brian Kite and choreographed by Dana Solimando, _Spring Awakening _follows its protagonists on the journey from youth to adulthood in Germany, 1891.

Part of La Mirada Theatre's Onstage series, this production offers fans of the show the chance to see it in an intimate, 199-seat theatre.

For more information, visit La Mirada Theatre's website.

Openings, ovations and rainbows! Oh my!

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Openings, ovations and rainbows! Oh my!

The stories theatre lovers have been talking about this week.

1. The Ahmanson's new season announced: Danny DeVito is one of the 2013-2013 headliners by Alysia Gray Painter [NBCLosAngeles.com]
March 18, 2013

A dressy night out at the Music Center to catch a major musical or play with top-notch actors has been a Los Angeles tradition for the better part of a half century. And the Center Theatre Group and The Ahmanson are set to deliver again for the 47th season, which kicks off on Sept. 24. ...

Read more. »

2. Review: A high-voltage End of the Rainbow by Chris Willman [LATimes.com]
March 21, 2013

Playing Judy Garland in the months leading up to the actress' fatal 1969 overdose, Tracie Bennett spends much of _End of the Rainbow _horizontal — though rarely for more than 10 seconds at a time. ...

Read more. »

3. _The Nether_opens Sunday at the Kirk Douglas Theatre by CTG [Press Release]
March 20, 2013

The world premiere of The Nether, a gripping new play by Jennifer Haley that explores the moral complexity of our increasingly virtual existence, opents at Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre this Sunday, March 24, at 6:30 p.m. ...

Read more. »

4. Center Theatre Group is critics' choice by Sean J. Miller [Backstage.com]
March 19, 2013

The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle added to the list of accolades racked up by the Center Theatre Group during the city’s drama awards season on Monday. ...

Read more. »

MIXED REVIEWS

A new musical with a deceptively suggestive title, Hands on a Hardbody, opened Thursday at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in Manhattan. With a book by Doug Wright, lyrics by Amanda Green, and music by Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green, the show follows 10 "hard-luck Texans ... fight[ing] to keep at least one hand on a brand-new truck in order to win it. In the hilarious, hard-fought contest that is _Hands on a Hardbody _only one winner can drive away with the American Dream."

The show is billed as an all-American musical, but will Broadway audiences agree? Check out what the critics are saying:

Stage Review: Hands on a Hardbody by Clark Collis [EW.com]
Legit Review: Hands on a Hardbody by Marilyn Stasio [Variety.com]
Hands on a Hardbody: Theater Review by David Rooney [HollywoodReporter.com]
_Hands on a Hardbody _on Broadway: What did the critics think? by Jamie Wetherbe [LATimes.com]
Personal stories and a shiny red paint job in Hardbody by Chris Jones [Articles.ChicagoTribune.com]
Hope is a thing with tires by Charles Isherwood [Theater.NYTimes.com]

Don't forget to tell us the theatre headlines you're jazzed about in the comments section!

5 theatre headlines you may have missed last week

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

5 theatre headlines you may have missed last week

The stories theatre lovers have been talking about this week.

1. James Franco in Of Mice and Men, plus more theater buzz by Matt Windman [Newsday.com]
March 12, 2013

While promoting his new movie, Oz the Great and Powerful on The Colbert Report last week, James Franco announced that he plans to come to Broadway in a revival of the stage version of John Steinbeck's Great Depression novel Of Mice and Men. Franco, who would play the farmhand George, offered Colbert a small role. ...

Read more. »

2. Corgi fired for disobeying Helen Mirren in The Audience by David Ng [LATimes.com]
March 11, 2013

One of Helen Mirren's four-legged co-stars in the new play The Audience apparently has been fired after it failed to obey the actress' royal commands in her role as Queen Elizabeth II. Britain's Telegraph reported that a female corgi by the name of Lizzy was let go ...

Read more. »

3. All Hyde, all night in this over-the-top pre-Broadway revival by Chris Jones [ChicagoTribune.com]
March 15, 2013

Frank Wildhorn's Jekyll & Hyde was never a subtle night of theater — more of a guilty, sexy pleasure, really, with high-wattage, hook-heavy power ballads that might not have had much of a connection to Robert Louis Stevenson's London ...

Read more. »

4. Unnerved, Like All of Us, by Life's Strangeness: _Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time _in London by Ben Brantley [Theater.NYTimes.com]
March 13, 2013

LONDON — You need blinkers to navigate a big city, something to screen out the teeming surplus of ambient sights and sounds. Christopher Boone — the 15-year-old hero of the thrillingly staged adaptation of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” at the Apollo Theater — has no such apparatus at all. ...

Read more. »

COMMENTARY

5. Not-For-Profit Arts Are Grossing Me Out by Howard Sherman [Blog.ArtsUSA.org]
March 14, 2013

I have made no secret of my disdain for the practice of announcing theatre grosses as if we were the movie industry. I grudgingly accept that on Broadway, it is a measure of a production’s health in the commercial marketplace, and a message to current and future investors. But no matter where they're reported, I feel that ...

Read more. »

Don't forget to tell us the theatre headlines you're jazzed about in the comments section!

The search for Holly Golightly’s cat, and other theatre in the news

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The search for Holly Golightly’s cat, and other theatre in the news

The stories theatre lovers are talking about this week.

1. Like herding cats? Well, try it on Broadway by Stephanie Clifford [Theater.NYTimes.com]
March 4, 2013

Four days before previews, the cast and crew of the new Broadway version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” were putting the finishing touches on the show’s blocking, lighting and costumes. But on this final day of February, there remained one gaping hole: the director still hadn’t cast the role of Holly Golightly’s cat.

It is not, thankfully, a speaking role. But the requirements are stiff. ...

2. Tribes, with original cast members, begins L.A. run by Adam Hetrick [Playbill.com]
February 27, 2013

Tribes, British playwright Nina Raine's drama about a deaf man seeking a new life outside his dysfunctional family, debuts in Los Angeles Feb. 27 following an acclaimed New York run. Members of the original Off-Broadway cast, including Russell Harvard, Susan Pourfar, Will Brill and Gayle Rankin, reunite for the West Coast engagement at the Mark Taper Forum. ...

3. Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2012-13 finalists announced [BroadwayWorld.com]
March 2, 2013

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, co-founded by Susan's sister and husband, Emilie S. Kilgore and William Blackburn, honors an outstanding new English-language play by a woman each year. For well over three decades, the prize has encouraged women playwrights and drawn attention to notable new works. Many of the winners have gone on to receive other honors, including Olivier, Lilly and Tony Awards for best play. ...

4. Photo coverage: Go inside Cinderella's opening night party by Walter McBride [BroadwayWorld.com]
March 4, 2013

Rodgers and Hammerstein's celebrated musical, Cinderella, originally written for television in 1957, opened last night, March 3, at the Broadway Theatre. BroadwayWorld.com was there to capture the whole night of glamour and romance. Check out the photos of the cast celebrating opening night!

‘That Beautiful Laugh’ at Long Beach Playhouse

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

‘That Beautiful Laugh’ at Long Beach Playhouse

Conceived by Orlando Pabotoy

Directed by Turner Munch

Starring Emily Brennick, Julia Davisas, Andrew Eiden, Mike Funt, Dave Honigman and Connor Kelly-Eiding

Winner of the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Award for best in physical theater, and recipient of a 2012 Bitter Lemons nomination for best family-friendly theater.

Departing from his home, the moon, a wise old man travels with his weathered precious trunk to a world that has forgotten how to laugh. Hoping to extinguish cynicism and judgement and replace it with joy and curiosity, he brings an arsenal of clowns, ignorant to the rules of the world. Together, these clowns must embark on a quest to find that beautiful laugh. Searching through each other and their audience, the clowns will discover and examine every avenue of laughter: love, joy, mischief, pain, fear, sadness and more, hoping to find the laugh that they have all been waiting for … That Beautiful Laugh.

Coming fresh off their run of Robin Hood at South Coast Repertory, Four Clowns is back in Long Beach with a family- and child-friendly show about the joys of laughter.

_That Beautiful Laugh _plays at the Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theatre through March 17.

‘Les Miserables’ Onstage at Colorado’s Buell Theatre

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

‘Les Miserables’ Onstage at Colorado’s Buell Theatre

The film version won three Oscars at last month's Academy Award ceremony. Now the classic stage musical heads to the Buell Theatre at The Denver Center for the Performing Arts for a one-week encore engagement.

_Les Mis__érables _opens May 22 and runs Tuesdays through Sundays until May 26. The production boasts "glorious new staging and dazzlingly reimagined scenery inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo."

Check out production shots here:

Mickey Mantle play in the works, and other theatre in the news

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mickey Mantle play in the works, and other theatre in the news

1. Mickey Mantle play in the works from pop music author David Leaf by Mike Boehm [LATimes.com]
March 1, 2013

It looks like “batter up!” again on the theatrical boards: Mickey Mantle is the subject of a new play that writer-producer David Leaf is working on with the cooperation of Danny and David Mantle, sons of the incredibly talented but careless New York Yankees star, who died in 1995.

Broadway World reports that Leaf has begun putting a team together for the show, which has Broadway ambitions. ...

2. Idina Menzel to return to Broadway next spring in a new musical by Patrick Healy [ArtsBeat.Blogs.NYTimes.com]
February 28, 2013

The Tony Award-winning actress Idina Menzel will return to Broadway next spring for the first time since “Wicked” to star in a new musical, “If/Then,” about a woman who moves to New York seeking a fresh start as she prepares to turn 40, the show’s producer, David Stone, announced on Thursday.

“If/Then” will also be the first Broadway production by the composer Tom Kitt and the lyricist and book writer Brian Yorkey since their critically acclaimed 2009 musical, “Next to Normal,” which won three Tonys – including one for best score – as well as the Pulitzer Prize for drama. ...

3. How will the NEA be affected if Congress doesn't avert the sequester? [Blogs.ArtInfo.com]
February 24, 2013

While Congress may have averted the “fiscal cliff” at the New Year, in actuality all it did was move the deadline for automatic spending cuts to go into effect from January 1 to March 1, effectively killing the scary-sounding fiscal cliff hype and replacing it with the much more obscure (and boring) term “the sequester” — all-but-ensuring that the average American cares much less about it. Fast forward two months. The sequester deadline is rapidly approaching, and you know what that means for the art world: even more cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts. ...

4. Still in previews on Broadway, Cinderella took in $1 million last week by Patrick Healy [ArtsBeat.Blogs.NYTimes.com]
February 20, 2013

The Broadway musical “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella” achieved a relatively rare feat last week, grossing more than $1 million even though the show is still in preview performances and has no star actors, according to box office data released on Tuesday.

Previews are traditionally a monthlong period when ticket prices are sharply discounted as the cast and creative team continue honing the production ...