| Issue #72: September 1, 2001
- With Nathan Lane soaking up the applause in the mega-hit
The Producers there’s no doubt that television network
CBS is hungry for him to try his hand at another sit-com. Three
years ago his series Encore!Encore! was pulled after
only a few episodes on NBC. Now it looks like CBS may be the
winner given his profile around The Producers which continues
to sell-out.
- It looks as though Alec Baldwin is making his way
back to the stage and renewing his alliance with the Public
Theatre. Baldwin is in negotiations to star in Naomi
Iizuka’s 36 Views at the Public in February.
His last Public Theatre appearance was in 1998 when he starred
in Macbeth.
- Edward Albee’s new play The Goat, or Who Is
Sylvia is Broadway bound and looking to open in the spring
of 2002. This is the first opening on Broadway for the playwright
since The Man Who Had Three Arms in 1983.
- In celebration of the Rodgers Centennial, a new English production
of On Your Toes will be mounted at the Haymarket Theatre
in Leicester, north of London. Adam Cooper, who starred
in the 1999 Matthew Bourne production of Swan Lake,
will star and choreograph the 1936 Rodgers & Hart musical
from scratch. Opening night is set for April 30, 2002.
- Let’s hope producer Duncan C. Weldon can find
a West End theatre available soon. If he does, a revival of
Private Lives is ready to go for a 16 week run to begin
in October starring Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan.
- Jude Law is committed to launch his return to the Young
Vic the week of March 25 to play the title role in Marlowe's
Doctor Faustus, directed by David Lan. An eight-week
run is planned with a potential transfer to the West End
- The roller skating extravaganza Starlight Express finally
puts the brakes on after 17 years. Andrew Lloyd Webber
recently announced the musical will close on January 17, 2002
after 7,406 performances. The second longest running musical
in West End history, Starlight Express opened on March
1984. Lloyd Webber's Cats, which opened in 1981,
holds the longest running record.
- Quote of the day: “I realized theatre was where I simply
had to be. It’s a sense of age – I don’t want
to waste my time. I just want everything to be important and
not to be trivial.” These words of Patrick Stewart,
best known as Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek –
The Next Generation, uttered on returning to the stage.
The 61 year-old actor will star in J.B. Priestley’s
Johnson Over Jordan at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in
Leeds. A Yorkshire native and a Royal Shakespeare Company actor,
Stewart is also interested in performing many other theatrical
roles including Macbeth and King Lear. Producers,
are you listening?
|
