2005 Wrap-Up: Looking Back at the Year's Top Broadway Newsmakers
The Pretty Woman
Plenty of film stars have tried their hand at theater before, but these actors are usually far from Julia Roberts' level. So, it is no surprise that when The New York Times announced on July 28 that Roberts would star in a Broadway production of Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain, her impending New York stage debut became the talk of the town. Is there a theater big enough to fit Roberts'fan base? Can her screen glory translate into a live forum? Is this really happening?! The answers to these questions will not be available until next year—Three Days of Rain begins its limited engagement at the Jacobs Theatre on March 28, 2006.
The Master
All My Sons, Death of A Salesman, The Crucible, A View from the Bridge—all of these are American classics and each was written by Arthur Miller. Whether he was making a political statement or just portraying the trials of a seemingly ordinary family, Miller had a way with words. The majority of playwrights today are simply following his lead. When he died on February 10 of heart failure, the entire theater community mourned his loss and toasted the indelible mark he left on the stage.
The Media Mogul
Very few women in the entertainment industry have as big a following as Oprah Winfrey. Her name graces television shows, a popular magazine, books and now a Broadway marquee. The fact that she signed on to "present" the musical of The Color Purple having acted in the movie based on the Alice Walker novel made major headlines. Since then two episodes of Oprah have had numbers from the musical; she also dedicated an entire episode of her Oxygen program Oprah After The Show to the tuner and even gave everyone in the Oprah studio audience free tickets to the Broadway show. That's not to mention her highly publicized appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman to promote Purple. Oprah put her money and her influence where her heart is, and box office numbers are proving her popularity.
The Bravest Individual
After stage neophyte Christina Applegate received less than stellar reviews from out-of-town critics, many thought she would drop out of Sweet Charity on the road. When she broke her foot onstage in Chicago, she probably would have had doctor's orders to back her up had she retreated to her Los Angeles home. But Applegate never left the show she loved. She stayed with the company in Boston, watching the tuner each night even though she could not perform. When producers called off the revival's Broadway run, she put up her own money to save it and decided to perform on her broken foot. Her dedication was unquestionable, and without it the Broadway season would not have been the same.
The Sure Thing
Anyone who puts Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick together on the same stage is going to sell a lot of tickets. Combine their names with a classic title like The Odd Couple and a sell-out is virtually guaranteed. That is just what the producers of the current revival of the Neil Simon classic got—tickets for the entire limited engagement of the comedy's run at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre went like gangbusters in a matter of hours. The hype fizzled a bit once the show was up and running—many critics and audience members saying that the duo's magic so evident in The Producers was largely absent this time around. That hasn't stopped people from clamoring for tickets though—The Odd Couple is golden in terms of gross.
The Trouper
Maria Friedman is one of Britain's most popular leadings ladies, but American audiences were predominantly not familiar with her. That all changed this fall when Friedman, making her Broadway debut in The Woman in White, was diagnosed with stage one breast cancer while her show was still in previews. She had surgery on November 3 and miraculously managed to return to the show on November 10, allowing The Woman in White to open on schedule seven days later. Friedman has since had more surgery, but she continues to carry her show.
The Poet
One of the most respected playwrights of his generation, August Wilson explored the African-American experience in a cycle of 10 acclaimed plays. When the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner announced he was suffering from liver cancer in late August, he had already known about the illness for over two months. What he did not know is that he would die on October 2, 14 days before the marquee for the August Wilson Theatre formerly the Virginia Theatre would be unveiled. People from all different facets of the industry admired Wilson, his focus and his work. He will be sorely missed.
The Mastermind
In the olden days of Broadway, vanity projects used to come and go with high frequency. With the multi-million dollar budget needed to put shows on these days, it's uncommon to see a piece written, directed and produced by a single person. This season found one such project—In My Life, a musical that was completely the property of Joseph Brooks a Broadway newcomer best known for writing the song "You Light Up My Life", whether it was his own money behind it or not. Brooks made news by putting his distinct vision, involving a boy with Tourette Syndrome and a gay angel/director, onstage at the Music Box Theatre, but what really kept him in the press is his refusal to let the show go after scathing reviews came out. The advertising campaign for In My Life kicked into high gear post-opening, with tons of television and print ads touting the show as "wacky" and "bizarre." The production closed on December 11; however people will be talking about Brooks, his musical and his media campaign for some time to come.
The Broadway Blonde
Suzanne Somers rose from nothing to become the darling of Three's Company. When she lost her fame after leaving the show, she persevered. Somers is part actress, part lifestyle-maven, part author, part salesperson—the list goes on. This year it became clear that one thing she is not is a big Broadway star. As soon as Somers' one-woman spectacular The Blonde in the Thunderbird was announced, people in the theater community began to snicker. Then they saw it, which didn't help. The show died quickly, but what remains memorable is Somers' outlandish attack on the critics who helped kill it. "These men are curmudgeons, and maybe I went too close to the bone for them," she alleged in a July 20 New York Post interview. "I was lying there naked, and they decided to kick me and step on me, just like these visions you see in Iraq." Enough said.
The Miracle
When Harvey Fierstein was rumored for Fiddler on the Roof, people did not believe it. Would the actor most recently known for donning a housedress as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray really take on one of musical theater's best known patriarchs? Would a man known for his croaky voice be heard on a Broadway stage singing the complicated Jerry Bock/Sheldon Harnick score? It did seem a little like a joke. It was not. Fierstein started as Tevye in January and—miracle of miracles—rejuvenated the floundering revival. Maybe there is nothing the multi-talented writer/actor can't do, though he is probably not ready for the Rockettes.
The Silver Screen The Conscience The Woman of Power The Street of Dreams The Little Show That Could
Last year at this time John Patrick Shanley was an Oscar-winning screenwriter who, despite having written numerous plays, had never seen his work produced on Broadway. Back then Doubt, a four-character drama centering on questionable allegations of abuse at a Bronx Catholic school in the mid-1960s, was in the midst of an acclaimed run at Manhattan Theatre Club, where Shanley's works had found an audience in the past. It wasn't until 2005 that the author made it to the Broadway big time—Doubt transferred to the Walter Kerr Theatre and won the Tony, the Pulitzer and just about every other prize imaginable. Not bad for a boy who was expelled from his Catholic high school in the Bronx.
Ever since the film version of Chicago made a splash a few years ago, movie musicals are back on everybody's lips. This year two movies based on currently running Broadway tuners made it to the big screen: Rent and The Producers. In a switch from the film versions of Chicago or The Phantom of the Opera, this year's cinematic versions featured most of the original principals from the stage show, a fact applauded by many fans. Neither was a big success, but both rejuvenated interest in their source material. Plus, neither was a disastrous bomb, so they did not kill the art form. The long-gestating Dreamgirls is currently lensing for release next year and many other such projects Hairspray, Jekyll & Hyde, etc. are in the pipeline. Now this is something to sing about!
"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them," British playwright Harold Pinter said in the middle of his taped Nobel Prize acceptance speech. "You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good… I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road." As if Pinter wasn't the subject of enough press for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature a rare feat for a playwright, his decision to use his speech as a political attack will long keep him forefront in the minds of intellectuals around the world. The 75-year-old playwright, who is suffering from esophageal cancer, was too sick to make it to the Nobel ceremony in Stockholm, but he left as big an impression as anyone there.
With the exception of Joseph Brooks, it is likely no individual had as much influence over a Broadway show this year as Yoko Ono had over the musical that bore her late husband's name. Ono didn't write Lennon her New York Rock days presumably behind her, direct it or even produce it—she simply had a "special thanks" credit on the title page, with releases saying it was "produced by arrangement" with her—but her influence was clear. The character of Yoko Ono was the only one played by the same actor throughout the musical, and John Lennon's extramarital affairs were glossed over in the text. When Lennon hit New York, after a poorly received out-of-town tryout, Ono attended virtually ever preview performance with two "bodyguards," i.e. the Broadhurst Theatre security guy and the show's associate company manager. She danced in the aisles, cheering loudly. She loved Lennon so much that she reportedly vetoed the many changes proposed to improve it. In the end, the show she wanted onstage did not appeal to most critics or audience members. Imagine that.
It's uncommon for a show's entire cast to be nominated for Tony Awards. Before this year, the last time it happened was in 2001 when Proof's foursome all collected nomination plaques. In 2005 it happened twice—the complete casts of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Bill Irwin, Kathleen Turner, Mireille Enos and David Harbour and Doubt Cherry Jones, Brían F. O'Byrne, Heather Goldenhersh and Adriane Lenox were honored with nominations. Adding a special hook to this story was the fact that the productions played right across the street from each other in the only two theaters the Longacre and the Walter Kerr, respectively on 48th Street west of Broadway. All of the actors involved touted the magic of 48th Street in interviews. Neither cast went home empty-handed either, with Woolf's Irwin and Doubt's Jones and Lenox picking up Tonys. It wasn't enough to keep Virginia Woolf alive for long, but it was something special nonetheless.
Just as Cinderella left the cinders behind and became a princess, so The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee ascended from humble beginnings to the bright, clean lights of Broadway. It all started a few years ago way off-off-Broadway at The Farm. There was a scrappy little show there, based on the goings-on at a spelling bee, with the unfortunate title C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E. Playwright Wendy Wasserstein brought the little show to her friend William Finn's attention, and the composer agreed to write songs for a musical version. The resulting tuner, in which young adults play the children of the bee and some audience members get in on the action, landed at Broadway's Circle in the Square last spring. It did not take home the Best Musical Tony as the equally small scale Avenue Q did the year before, but with little glitz, Spelling Bee has become a big Broadway hit, frequently selling out. We know its producers can spell "success."