Issue #195: June 15, 2007

Read the Toronto Star article on Camp Broadway!!
Read the Toronto Sun article on Camp Broadway!!

• In the 50s it was West Side Story, the 60s Hair and Godspell, the 70s A Chorus Line and Chicago, the 80s Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera, the 90s Rent and now the groundbreaking musical Spring Awakening carries the torch for this decade of new Broadway musicals. This rock musical about teenage sexual anxiety picked up eight Tony’s including the coveted Best Musical. Legendary playwright Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia broke the record for number of Tony’s for a play by picking up seven including Best Play.

• Other notable Tony’s went to David Hyde Pierce for best actor in a musical (Curtains), Frank Langella for best actor in a play (Frost/Nixon), Christine Ebersole for best actress in a musical (Grey Gardens), and Julie White for best actress in a play (Little Doug Laughed)

• If history is a good indicator look for Spring Awakening to hit the tour circuit this fall.

• The wonderful Encores! series is producing Gypsy this summer starring Patti LuPone and Boyd Gaines beginning July 9 at City Center.

• It was a lousy movie in the 80s so what were they thinking when they decided to turn it into a Broadway musical. Xanadu opens at the Helen Hayes Theatre on June 26. However, producer Rob Ahrens told the book writer Douglas Carter Beane to do whatever he wants with the story. We’ll see when the curtain rises.

• It’s the little musical that just keeps on giving….The Drowsy Chaperone recently opened at the Novello Theatre to enthusiastic reviews. The London critics are some of the toughest around so to receive such great notices could see this production in London for quite some time.

• Ewan McGregor returns to his first love, the stage, on December 4 when he will star as Iago in Michael Grandage’s production of Othello at the Donmar Warehouse.

• Orlando Bloom puts down the pirate gear late this summer when he plans to make his West End debut in David Storey’s In Celebration.

• Stockard Channing (former first lady on West Wing) will star in a revival of Clifford Odet’s Awake and Sing! at the Almeida on September 6.