'Kinky Boots' Deserves To Clean Up At The Tony Awards!

 

 

 

The purpose of a good musical is to entertain, have you humming afterwards and demanding that your friends go see it as soon as possible. If that fits your definition of a good musical then you should be heading over to see Kinky Boots which is the classic Broadway hit!

You will recognize all the ingredients for a ' Best Musical' nominee with a wonderful collection of talent at all levels of the production giving us their personal best. If this hit does yield a truck load of Tony Awards it will be criminal.

Most importantly, the audience gets to see the work of four great masters who work in perfect collaboration.

Legendary Director/Choreographer Jerry Mitchell gives us a gift of a musical that has so much energy you wonder how the cast can do two shows on Wednesday's and Saturdays. The cast should be walking around with canes from expending that much explosive energy on stage. Mitchell maintains a firm grip on the pacing and gives us lavish production numbers that left you breathless and in awe.

Harvey Fierstein is a legendry Broadway pioneer for LGBT Americans as an actor and writer. Personally, he has always had my respect and admiration not only for his considerable talent but also his courage. The book for Kinky Boots is sharp and in tune with the production and the music. Harvey has a great gift for story telling and he might just seize his second Tony Award for writing.

Who knew that Cyndi Lauper could hit it out of the park in her first Broadway musical as a composer and lyricist? She matches Fierstein's skill in story telling with one anthem after another that inspires everyone to feel empowered and good about themselves. Lauper took this challenge and has created music for this show that will be sung in high schools, universities, cruise ships and yes, even 'American Idol'! What joy it is to see her talent at its best and to be inspired by her music.

Now she can add a Tony Award to her Grammy and Emmy. Calling the Oscars?

Billy Porter and Stark Sands

Finally the ever talented and extraordinary performer Billy Porter has his moment! From his first appearance on stage until the end, Porter owns the stage - in fact he tears it up! With endless energy, respect for other performers and a sexiness that defies all genders, he is a power house that won't be stopped by anything. Porter has his long time fans (including me) and to see him in a starring glamorous role is so damn rewarding to not only his fans but every member of the audience.

Porter's genius should not overshadowed the incredible performance by his talented co-star Stark Sands who plays 'Charlie' with a likable charm and an excellent voice. Sands rise to every challenge and holds his own when with Porter on stage and that is no small achievement.

Other highlights includes "Lola Angels', the spectacular set of David Rockwell and really excellent lighting by Kenneth Posner.

This is the show for everyone from tourists to theater snobs, from Jersey blue hair ladies to cowboys from Wyoming and from LGBT Americans to .....well, really they standing alone should be enough! See Kinky Boots now at the Al Hirschfeld Theater.

LGBT Favorites Win Tony Award Nominations!!!

 

 

 

Judith Light Nominated for Third Tony Award

The Tony Awards were announced this morning and they bring with them great news for fans of Broadway.

Actress icon Judith Light received her third nomination (she won for 'Other Desert Cities') in a row for The Assembled Parties. Broadway pioneer Harvey Fierstein won a nod this time for writing the book of Kinky Boots. Director Jerry Mitchell won a nomination for the same musical. The amazing Billy Porter won for his tour de force performance as the lead in Kinky Boots. Earning a nomination for Best Actor for The Nance was Nathan Lane. Out actor David Hyde Pierce will compete against Lane for Best Actor for his role in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike!

The battle for Best Musical will be between Kinky Boots (13 nominations) and Matilda the Musical (12 nominations).

The Best Play Award could be won by any of the five nominees.

Gravely overlooked this year by the Tony Awards were Jessica Hecht for The Assembled Parties and Alan Cumming for MacBeth. What were they thinking???

Alan Cumming Talks To Colbert About His Astounding Show 'MacBeth'

 

 

 

For those of us who saw Alan Cumming at Lincoln Center last year in his extraordinary 'MacBeth', it was the theater experience of a life time. You see my review here of that performance. Now it is being moved to Broadway and is opening on April 21st at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. The play is directed by John Tiffany and Andrew Goldberg.

Cumming appeared on Colbert Report to discuss the play!

The Colbert Report
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Young LGBT People Who Are Changing The World

 

 

 

The Advocate has selected forty LGBT young people under forty who are making a difference in the world. They are "accomplished leaders in politics, sports, science, religion and the arts.". You can't help but look at this list and feel great hope for the future. Here are five of them..

Ryan Spahn
32 / New York
Actor and Student

Ryan Spahn happily acknowledges that his partner of four years, Michael Urie (of Ugly Betty fame), has the more recognizable face of the couple. In fact, he’s banking on it. Spahn’s first feature film, in theaters this May, is sardonically titled He’s Way More Famous Than You. He wrote the film with Halley Feiffer, with Urie in the director’s chair. Both Spahn and Urie star in the film, along with Tracee Chimo, Jesse Eisenberg, and But I’m a Cheerleader’s Natasha Lyonne.

While completing preproduction for Famous in 2011, Spahn penned a screenplay for another upcoming film, Grantham & Rose, a coming-of-age story featuring Feiffer as a filmmaker willing to lie, cheat, and steal to get her way, foiled by The Jeffersons’ Marla Gibbs as a feisty 81-year-old woman named Rose.

Spahn is also a third-year drama student at Juilliard. Urie, a Juilliard alum, encouraged his partner to attend, promising the education would change his life. Indeed, Spahn says he’s found funding for and self-produced all three of his feature film and a short film projects since enrolling.

“It was unexpected and thrilling,” says Spahn. “So it was more of a juggling act of scheduling the films to fall during my holiday breaks. I am a hard worker, so I managed to balance the workload of Juilliard against these filming schedules.” @ryan_spahn

Harper Jean Tobin
31 / Washington, D.C.
Director of Policy, National Center for Transgender Equality

As a young transgender woman coming of age in Louisville, Ky., Harper Jean Tobin was grateful for her supportive family and friends within her community. But while she describes Louisville as “the least conservative place in Kentucky,” she was still aware of the discrimination and transphobia that runs deep in many Southern states. That awareness led the lawyer — recently named among the best 40 LGBT attorneys under 40 by the National LGBT Bar Association — to actively fight to improve the lives, visibility, and equality of transgender people by creating inclusive federal policy. And that’s exactly what she’s done in her four years with the National Center for Transgender Equality.

“Gears sometimes turn slowly in this town,” says Tobin of the Washington infrastructure. “But we have seen tremendous progress over the past four years.”

Tobin cites 2010 revisions to federal policy that allowed transgender people to obtain passports that reflect their authentic gender without a requirement for surgical procedures. Tobin also highlights ongoing work to protect transgender prisoners and immigration detainees. Tobin says such efforts have been “quite successful” thus far, but notes that there is still much to do. She hopes NCTE’s efforts signal the beginning of “a larger and very critical conversation in our movement about the ways in which so many of our transgender youth are funneled into these harmful systems by poverty, unemployment, rejection, and discrimination.” @transequality

Alex Morse
24 / Holyoke, Mass.
Mayor

When your high school gay-straight alliance faces censorship by the school board, it helps to have the town’s mayor on your side. To be fair, Mayor Alex Morse of Holyoke, Mass., founded that group back in his high school days, which weren’t that long ago. He’s only 24.

The Holyoke High School GSA planned an assembly against bullying in February, and in response a board member wanted to move it after school or require an opt-out provision because of its supposed sexual nature. Morse spoke strongly against the idea, arguing that the kids most likely to opt out would also be most in need of training. When he won and the assembly happened, the mayor was a guest speaker.

Morse shows that even a mayor for a city of about 40,000 can make a difference for LGBT Americans. “Legal protections are one thing,” he says. “Changing the hearts and minds of people is another challenge.” @mayormorse

Amir Dixon
23 / Boston
Filmmaker

Amir Dixon recently made history when his film Friend of Essex screened at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, one of the nation’s preeminent historically African-American colleges. The documentary drama explores the lives of young black gay men today and “looks at how we are seen in the black community through the scope of religion, how we are seen in the [larger] LGBTQ community, and in turn how we see ourselves,” Dixon says. The film has prompted discussions on race, masculinity, identity, and sexuality. This is what he hopes to achieve wherever Friend of Essex screens. “[I hope to set a] national agenda for LGBTQ people of color that is inclusive of all of our experiences,” he says. “This isn’t about me but about us.” @amirnow

Danielle Moodie-Mills
33 / Washington, D.C.
Director of Education Advocacy, National Wildlife Federation

If you think you’re busy, you haven’t met Danielle Moodie-Mills. She’s the director of education advocacy for the National Wildlife Federation, a board member for the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, and an adviser for LGBT policy and racial justice with Fighting Injustice to Reach Equality, an initiative of the Center for American Progress. In her spare time, she maintains a blog (ThreeLOL.com) and hosts a radio show (Politini at BLIS.fm), both of which she manages with her wife. But she doesn’t mind her industrious life. “I’m really passionate about all those pieces because they really reflect to my core, which is social justice and working for equality across the board for all people,” she says.

Moodie-Mills’s latest work with NWF centers on encouraging kids to put down the Xbox and get active, and her latest project with FIRE involves helping LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system. “I’m really proud to do the work I do,” she says. @deetwocents

SEE THE ENTIRE LIST BY CLICKING HERE........

Theater Review: 'Buyer and Cellar' Is Pure Genius

 

 

Jonathan Tolins, Michael Urie and Stephen Brackett

Doesn't make any difference if you are considering Michael Urie's astounding performance, Jonathan Tolins brilliant script or the perfect direction by Stephen Brackett, the word 'genius' applies to each of them. 'Buyer and Cellar' at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is a work of art, an evening of entertainment and theater at its best.

The one man show is about a young actor who obtains a position in 'Barbra Streisand's 'private mall' in the basement of her home in Malibu. The famous Barbra is the only customer over the months. A purely fictionalized account (although the famous diva does have her own private mall!) that is filled with laughter and even a compassionate view of her life. Young 'Alex' sits waiting alone for her to appear and 'shop' and believes that Streisand and him are becoming friends.

Tolins has paced the play at the speed of a machine gun. Words pour forth from Urie who plays not only the young actor 'Alex' but shares with us his interpretation of the famous singer. Urie also channels Streisand's assistant and husband James Brolin. The script is a gift to any actor filled with belly laughs, insight into the human condition and rich in dialogue. Tolins who is most known for his "Twilight of the Golds', has written a play that can only make other writers green with envy. It is that good.

How fortunate Tolins is to have actor Michael Urie to play all the characters. Urie who is one of the entertainment industry's bright young stars gives perhaps his best performance ever in this gem. For an hour and a half, without a break, Urie commands the stage and refuses to allow the audience or himself to rest. His ability to own the rapid fire dialogue without total exhaustion is impressive to watch. You keep waiting for him to wind down and fortunately for us he refuses to let go.

Urie, who wowed critics in 'The Temperamental's', smartly does not attempt to resort to cheap and easy Barbra imitations but instead conveys her presence on stage with creative and brilliant energy, smart dialogue and movement. A simple flick of the hands will cause laughter. A cleaver look into the audience with wide eyes speaks a million words. Few actors could handle the intrinsic's of Tolins' play and Urie wraps it and presents it to the audience as a great gift of magnificent theater.

You leave the theater hoping that this talented actor will be on stage often in the future so we can selfishly watch him over and over in many different shows.

None of this would have been possible without the talented and incredible direction of Stephen Brackett. The young director is becoming one of the most sought after in New York theater. He doesn't resort to gimmicks or temptation to please an audience. Brackett is an actor's director who trusts his team's ability to convey the splendid words of the playwright. He has taken Urie's incredible talent with the playwrights words and given us an astounding evening of theater.

Brackett is one of the best directors in use of video projection design and with the talents of Alex Koch he uses it with great effect in creating 'The Streisand Mall".

'Buyer and Cellar' is likely to sell out in this small space so I would reserve my tickets now. Click here and treat yourself to an intelligent, funny and dynamic evening of theater.

Five Questions For .........Director Sean Mathias

 

 

Sean Mathias (R) chatting with Breakfast at Tiffanys stars Cory Michael Smith and Emila Clark

Actor, writer and director Sean Mathias is as close to a Renaissance man as you will find.

The talented British import to Broadway is directing the new Broadway version of Breakfast at Tiffany's. The play, based on the Truman Capote book, has just opened at the Cort Theatre (at 138 West 48th Street).

 

Mathias was selected by the Sunday Independent as one of the most influential LGBT people in Britain. The talented man worked closely with Sir Ian McKellen and was also his partner in life for a number of years.

While having acted in several plays in the West End of London, it is as a director that Mathias has achieved the most acclaim.

Many people around the globe will best know him for brilliant direction of the film Bent. Both the stage version and film about homosexual inmates in a Nazi Concentration Camp moved people to tears.

When he directed a revival of Bent by Martin Sherman as a benefit, the production became legendary in the theater community. The play that night starred Sir. Ian McKellen, Ian Charleson and Ralph Fiennes. They young handsome Charleson, who was the star of Chariots of Fire, was dying of AIDS.

The film version starred Jude Law, Rupert Graves, Clive Owen, Sir. Ian McKellen, Mick Jagger,and Lothaire Bluteau. The Cannes Film Festival bestowed the "Prix de la Jeunesse'.

 

The credits for Mathias role as director are international. There is hardly a major star of the stage that has not clamor to work with him. Among those who he has directed on stage are Sir Ian McKellen, Jude Law, Judi Dench, Rupert Graves, Kathleen Turner, Cynthia Nixon, Billy Crudup, Alan Rickman, Helen Mirren and so many others.

Mathias has been honored for his work both with nominations and awards. Born in Wales, he lived in South Africa for awhile but has returned home to his native United Kingdom.

Here are Five Questions For...........Sean Mathias: 

1. When did you come 'out' and what was that experience for you?

When I wrote the screenplay for the BBC film The Lost Language of Cranes. It is a story about coming out. In order to promote it in the press, I described how I had come out at home. It is never easy.

2. You have been an actor, writer and director. Which one has given you the greatest satisfaction and why?

They have all fed each other. Romantically I am a writer but pragmatically I am a director.

3. You directed the film and stage versions of 'Bent' to great acclaim. There was a famous benefit performance in 1989 for Stonewall in London. The famous actor Ian Charleson (Chariots of Fire) was in that production and in the last stages of HIV/AIDs. What was it like that night to see his courage on the stage? Can you share a little about that legendary night?

Ian was a very close friend and I knew he was dying of AIDS. He played Greta, the Drag Queen, and had to change from female costume to male costume on stage. I placed screens all around the set to give him privacy. His body was covered with KS but his spirit was so beautiful, brave and true. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

Ian Charleson

4. What project would you give your left arm to direct?

I am hanging on to my left arm.

5. What is the most embarrassing or funny event to happen to you as a director or actor?

When I made my debut in Hair on tour and they inserted a naked bath scene to be extra provocative, and I was the boy in the bath being bathed by two girls. We played my home town and my parents came to see, and my mother yelled out "Oh no, I can see his dick-dock!"

Cheyenne Jackson Is Everywhere

 

 

 

You can find Cheyenne Jackson everywhere these days. The talented and handsome star is much in demand these days. His voice is on everyone's IPOD and he has graced many stages on Broadway.

Deadline Hollywood broke the story this morning that Cheyenne will be the star in the movie version of  "6 Dance Lessons in 6 Weeks" . His co-star will be Gena Rowlands. He will play the role of Michael Minetti who gives dance lessons to a retiree (played by Rowlands).

Jackson also just finished a pilot for the brand new Amazon Studios which is called "The Onion Presents: The News" where he will play an overly ambitious television news anchor. This is a comedy which will co-star Jeffrey Tambor.

This summer Jackson will be in the HBO movie 'Behind the Candelabra" with Matt Damon and Michael Douglas. This is the love story between Liberace and his much younger lover Scott Thorson directed by the legendary Steven Soderburgh.

This is my favorite song that Cheyenne sings:

Theater Review: 'Hit The Wall' Is Powerful HIT!

 

 

 

Just when I believed there was nothing more to feel or learn about the Stonewall Uprising in New York in June, 1969, along comes the off-Broadway production of 'Hit The Wall'. The astounding new play opened at the Barrow Street Theater in New York City left me laughing, crying, breathless and proud.

Simply put, you will be doing yourself a great disservice if you miss this extraordinary intimate and powerful production.

The theater has pumped new life into an old story of courage and heroism. Instead of reading or watching about Stonewall the audience actually feels what it must have been like to be there that night.

Writer Ike Holter has avoided the tendency to allow usual stereotypes to dominate and gave those characters rich and complex personalities who the audience learn to love. He makes sure we understand them and care for them before taking us into battle.

Director Eric Hoff has mounted one of the most innovative productions seen in years on such a small stage with a huge story. Hoff has done a masterful job. The brilliant use of lighting, set design and special effects makes the audience participants into that historical night. The staging of the riots and police brutality of that first night is just amazing feat for him to accomplish in such a small space with a limited cast.

The music is provided by a small 'hippie' electronic band that moves from onstage to off stage with ease. Judy Garland is remembered (who was buried the day of Stonewall) with an amazing electronic version reminisce of Jimmy Hendrix of 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow'.

None of this would have work without the outstanding ensemble cast who as a group gives us a night in the theater we will not forget. Each and everyone of them gave a great performance and dive into their characters.

The Cast

Especially shining on opening night were the performances by Nathan Lee Graham, Rania Salem Manganaro and Sean Alan Krill. The funny, hip and powerful performances by the duo Gregory Haney and Arturo Soria became the center piece of the evening. The two should have their own television show.

'Hit the Wall' will be the Barrow Street Theater until July 7th. This production is the best night you will have a long time in a theater. Don't miss it.

New York Observer: Judith Light Is On Three Year Winning Streak!

 

 

In an article by Harry Haun for The New York Observer, he reports that Actress Judith Light is taking New York by storm. The last three years has seen one success after another. First came the Tony Award nomination for Lombardi and then the Tony Award win for Other Desert Cities. The multi-Emmy Award winning actress will appear in The Assembled Parties which opens at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater on April 17.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

It was not the sort of applause that generally greets a star. It was that more rarefied kind reserved for somebody truly beloved. Last December, when Judith Light took to the stage of the New Amsterdam at The 24th Annual Gypsy of the Year competition to do what has become her regular moment-of-silence spot for those lost to AIDS, there was a massive outpouring of affection. A longtime Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS standard-bearer, she couldn’t be better cast for the bit, her voice ringing with dignity and compassion. But that reception set off in me a wave of jealousy, along with the toxic thought, “Damn! They love her as much as I do!”

Bernie Telsey, the casting director and co-founder of Manhattan Class Company, understands my petty feeling well—he doesn’t enjoy sharing Ms. Light either. On the one hand, as he counseled me last week, you’re happy that people see what you see. On the other hand, “she’s not your secret anymore.”

Mr. Telsey, who had almost everything to do with getting Ms. Light back on the Broadway track, having hired her in 1999 to replace the awesome, award-showered Kathleen Chalfant in Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit, has cast Ms. Light as the honoree—“for her bold, daring, risk-taking spirit”—at MCC’s annual fund-raising gala, “Miscast 2013,” which will be held March 4 at the Hammerstein Ballroom.

She’s had three shows on the Main Stem in three seasons—pretty good hittin’ in anybody’s book, and worth celebrating—and she was a shoo-in, Mr. Telsey said, when he and his MCC partners, Robert LuPone, Will Cantler and Blake West, threw the bones on the floor. “When we talked of someone who’s touched our lives as an actress, as an ambassador for our arts and education program, it was unanimous. All four of us have that kind of relationship with her.”

Since Wit, he pointed out, she hasn’t stopped working in New York. “She’s so connected with the words that she’s saying, in whatever play, that she touches you as an audience member. When she speaks, it crosses over those footlights and lands in your lap. She’s sharing that character’s story, and you just feel connected with her.”

************************************

TWO WEEKS DEEP INTO REHEARSAL, Ms. Light spoke of The Assembled Parties guardedly and in generalities, perhaps hoping to preserve its surprises. Act I takes place in 1980, Act II in 2000—Mr. Greenberg is fond of generation-jumping (Three Days of Rain)—and the show’s focus is how a well-to-do Jewish family fares over the decades.

“My character, in this particular play, is a woman who has made what she considers to be a terrible mistake and had to get married,” she explained. “This happens around 1949, 1950. And she is cut off by her mother, who denies her the closeness that they once had. The thing that’s happening is that Jessica Hecht’s character—my sister-in-law—does something that transforms my whole life and my whole relationship to her. The Assembled Parties is about making a relationship, and making a family, out of people who are not necessarily family. It’s about connections, making connections.” Her performance promises to be impressive, if her turn in Eric Simonson’s Lombardi two years ago is any gauge. In 244 performances, she played the ultimate in football widows, Marie (Mrs. Vince) Lombardi, who treated her loneliness with stiff drinks.

“I knew from the start—from the first reading—that she absolutely got the character,” Mr. Simonson recalled. “She understood the humor, which was key to understanding the role.””

But it wasn’t just that. “Judith was a consummate professional in rehearsal,” he said, “extremely positive in nature, never said a bad word about anybody—and the cast came to call her ‘Mom.’”

After the curtain falls or the series fails, there is still Light. When America Ferrera, her Ugly Betty co-star, did a stage turn for the Women’s Project recently in Bethany, Ms. Light led the opening-night cheering session. When Lily Rabe, her daughter in MCC’s Colder Than Here, won the Actors’ Equity Callaway Award for playing Portia in The Merchant of Venice, she was the kveller in the crowd. When Danny Pinatauro, her son for 196 Who’s the Boss? episodes, made his stage debut at the Duplex as a street hustler in The Velocity of Gary, “Mom” was down front, beaming.

Lombardi got her a Tony nomination. The Tony itself came last year for following Linda Lavin’s Off-Broadway act when Jon Robin Baitz’s Pulitzer-contending Other Desert Cities went to Broadway: a visiting relative politically out of sync in a Republican California home, fresh out of rehab and flinging stinging zingers right and right.

Of course, none of it might have happened without Wit. “They believed in me,” Ms. Light said. “I’d done nothing on stage for 22 years, and they gave me a shot. I still remember a review I got that said, ‘This person wouldn’t be your first or your 500th choice for Wit—but, oh my goodness!’

Five Broadway Actors Who Made "OUT'S" 100 Most Eligible Bachelors

 

 

 

Kyle Dean Massey (Wicked)

Out Magazine has published its annual list of the '100 Most Eligible Bachelors'. These are the single gay men that thousands have on their wish list or in their dreams at night. Included in this year's list are a number of Broadway entertainers and actors who are openly gay men. All of them are extremely talented and currently available! Enjoy!

Luke MacFarlane (Normal Heart and Brothers and Sisters)

Gavin Creel (Hair and Book of Mormon)

Sam Barnett (The History Boys)

Matt Doyle (War Horse and Book of Mormon)