Issue #244: September 15, 2010

• The Public Theater is taking its Central Park production of The Merchant of Venice to Broadway. Opening on October 19th at the Broadhurst Theater the play with have its star Al Pacino as Shylock, with the limited production running through to January 9.

• Amanda Peet joins David Duchovney in the Manhattan Theater Club’s off-Broadway production of Neil LaBute’s Break of Noon, opening October 28 at the Lucille Lortel Theater.

• Canadian stage legend Christopher Plummer will reprise his Tony-winning role when Barrymore returns to Toronto January 27 at the Elgin Theatre. This will be a limited run until March 9.

• Toronto will be the first North American stop for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom sequel. Love Never Dies will open in 2011…date and theatre to be confirmed….before it heads to Broadway. Lord Webber also plans to launch another production of Love Never Dies in Australia.

• In the land down under Jersey Boys walked away with the Helpmann Award for Best Musical. After 14 months in Melbourne playing to over 600,000 patrons the show is currently in previews in Sydney with the official opening at the Theatre Royal set for September 18.

• Emmy Award-winning voice director Stevie Vallance will teach Intro to Animation Acting as part of the giant New York Comic Con conference at the Jacob K. Javits Center, New York on Saturday, October 9.
  
  http://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/
  
  Vallance, who now makes her home in Southampton, Ontario, hosts a follow-up event on October 17; a one-day Tooned In! workshop for voice actors at The Edge Studios, Manhattan. YouTube ETalk Vallance interview

• To those of a certain age his most famous role was in the classic 1956 science fiction thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it was theatre where Kevin McCarthy first entertained an audience. In 1938 he made his Broadway debut in Abe Lincoln in Illinois followed by Two for the Seesaw in 1959 and in 1960 in Advice and Consent. He also did the road circuit for more than two decades in the one-man show about President Harry S. Truman Give ’Em Hell, Harry. In addition to his appearance in the Invasion… cult classic, McCarthy was nominated for an Oscar in his first film role as Willy Loman’s son in Death of a Salesman in 1951. Throughout his long career the versatile actor was seen on stage, film and on television. Kevin McCarthy aged 96 died on September 11.