All Entries in the "Production Team" Category

Gemignani and Plimpton, Together Again

From Playbill:
Wall to Wall Broadway’s 12-Hour Line-Up Announced
By Andrew Gans
12 May 2009

Symphony Space’s free Wall to Wall Broadway: A Century of Musicals, a 12-hour celebration of the music of Broadway, will be presented May 16 beginning at 11 AM.

Hosted and staged by Symphony Space artistic director and co-founder Isaiah Sheffer, the annual event will feature an array of works from Broadway — songs, overtures, dance music — performed by hundreds of well known and emerging artists…

…At 8 PM, Tony and Emmy Award winner Paul Gemignani conducts a full orchestra in performances of Broadway musical classics. Performers include Michael Cerveris, Alexander Gemignani, George S. Irving, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Raúl Esparza, Martha Plimpton, Loni Ackerman, Terrence Mann, Randy Graff, Kate Baldwin, Leenya Rideout, Gregg Edelman, B.D. Wong, Julie Wilson, Debbie Gravitte, Ivy Austin, Isaiah Sheffer, Melissa Errico, James Naughton, Lisa Flanagan, Kathryn Markey, Amy Vice, Jonathan Hadary, Jeffrey Schecter, Liz Calaway, D’Ambrose Boyd, Chip Zien and Donna Murphy.

The current schedule of performances follows:

Four TONY Nominations for Pal Joey!

The American Theatre Wing announced the 2009 Tony Award Nominees today, with Roundabout Theatre Company’s Pal Joey picking up a respectable FOUR:

Best Revival of a Musical
Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical; Stockard Channing
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical; Martha Plimpton
Best Scenic Design of a Musical; Scott Pask

Congratulations to Roundabout and the entire Pal Joey team!!

More Award Nominations for Pal Joey!

From Variety:
Astaire Awards announce nominees

Choreographers of Broadway tuners “Billy Elliot” and “Hair” and pics “Slumdog Millionaire” and “High School Musical 3″ are among the nominees of the 2009 edition of the dance-centric Astaire Awards.
Director and choreographer Stanley Donen (”Singin’ in the Rain,” “On the Town”) will get the lifetime achievement award at the ceremony, set for June 1.

Nominees for Rialto choreographer are Andy Blankenbuehler (”9 to 5″), Karole Armitage (”Hair”), Peter Darling (”Billy Elliot”), Sergio Trujillo (”Guys and Dolls”) and Graciela Daniele (”Pal Joey”)…

Performer noms for male dancers went to Jeffrey Denman (”White Christmas”), Matthew Risch (”Pal Joey”), plus a shared nom for the three young actors who rotate in the title role of “Billy Elliot” and another for the two who alternate in the role of Billy’s friend Michael.

Four TONY Nominations for Pal Joey!

The American Theatre Wing announced the 2009 Tony Award Nominees today. While Billy Elliott and Next to Normal topped the list of multiple nominations by show (15 and 11 respectively), Roundabout Theatre Company’s Pal Joey picked up a respectable 4 Tony nods:

Best Revival of a Musical
Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical; Stockard Channing
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical; Martha Plimpton
Best Scenic Design of a Musical; Scott Pask

Congratulations to Roundabout and the entire Pal Joey team!!

For a full listing of Nominees, read more.

Pal Joey Hits It Big With Award Nominations

The Drama Desk Awards nominations were announced on April 27 at the New York Friars Club, with Pal Joey garnering three nominations:

Outstanding Revival of a Musical
Outstanding Actress in a Musical: Stockard Channing
and Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical: Martha Plimpton

The Drama Desk, an organization of professional theater critics, writers and editors, bestows awards with Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway productions competing in the same categories. The ceremony will be held on May 17 at F.H. LaGuardia Concert Hall at Lincoln Center, hosted by Harvey Fierstein.

For a full listing of Drama Desk Award nominees, please click here.

Also, the Outer Critics CircleAwards nominations were announced on April 20 at the Algonquin Hotel, with Pal Joey being nominated for two awards:

Outstanding Revival of a Musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway)
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical: Martha Plimpton

Outer Critics Circle Awards are bestowed by an association whose members are affiliated with more than 90 publications and broadcasting outlets. Winners will be announced on May 11, and the 2009 awards ceremony will be held on May 21 at Sardi’s.

For a full listing of Outer Critics Circle Awards nominees, please click here.

Congratulation to Stockard and Martha for those well-deserved noms!

William Ivey Long Wins TDF/Irene Sharaff Award

It was announced earlier this month that William Ivey Long will receive the TDF/Irene Sharaff “Lifetime Achievement” Award. The TDF Irene Sharaff Awards were founded in 1993 to pay tribute to the art of costume design. Since then, the annual award presentation has become an occasion for the costume design community to come together to honor its own.

Included in the impressive list of more than 50 Broadway shows Mr. Long has designed costumes for are the currently running Pal Joey and the forthcoming 9 to 5. He won Tonys for Grey Gardens, Hairspray, The Producers, Crazy for You and Nine and was Tony-nominated for La Cage aux Folles, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Music Man, Cabaret, Chicago and Lend Me a Tenor.

The awards ceremony will take place on March 27 at the Hudson Theatre. Congratulations, Mr. Long, on this much deserved award.

Richard Greenberg, “Revived” Again

PLAYBILL.COM’S BRIEF ENCOUNTER With Richard Greenberg
By Robert Simonson
14 Jan 2009

Rare among his generation of American playwrights, Richard Greenberg is seeing major New York revivals of his works before he is eligible for senior citizen discounts.

In 2006, Julia Roberts starred in a Broadway revival of his 1997 play Three Days of Rain. And now, Manhattan Theatre Club has brought back his 1990 work The American Plan — which, incidentally, had its New York premiere at MTC. Mercedes Ruehl and and Lily Rabe star as a mother and daughter of the early 1960s who have different reactions when a young man comes to call at their summer house in the Catskills. Greenberg is also represented on Broadway right now by his long-aborning libretto adaptation of the Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey. The prolific and always-busy writer spoke to Playbill.com about the difference between young Richard Greenberg and old Richard Greenberg.

Playbill.com: This is the second time in the past few seasons when a play of yours, which had its debut Off-Broadway several years ago, has been given a revival on Broadway — the first being Three Days of Rain. When you reexamine these works many years after having written them, do they seem like different plays than what you remember?
Richard Greenberg: I can’t say the experience has really been the same for the two. Even though The American Plan was written only six years before Three Days of Rain, they seem like significant years. American Plan seems much further away. American Plan had been done twice at Manhattan Theatre Club, in 1990 and 1991, and then I saw another production of it a year ago in San Diego. So I’ve been gradually pulled back into its sphere. It was very clear to me that it was a play by someone else. I felt a continuity as a writer more with Three Days of Rain. When I went back and made some revisions on The American Plan, I had to stop myself because I realized that I was very different then and that I could compromise the style of the play. I thought, “Well, I wouldn’t write the scene that way now, but that’s the point. Leave it alone.” It is its own play and works on different terms than I work on now.

Playbill.com: How were you different as a writer back then?
RG: Younger. I was younger.

Pal Joey’s Official Opening Night, December 18th

I’m just back from a fantastic trip to New York for the “official” opening night of Pal Joey at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Studio 54. In case you’re wondering, the difference between the show on December 11th, which was the original opening night, and December 18th, the “official” opening night is that now the press is allowed to write reviews. That’s right, all that stuff you’ve read in the press the last month wasn’t “reviews”, but just “opinions” - officially.

I am not by any means, a Broadway critic. So the thoughts you are about to read are just that - my random thoughts as I watched the show. And as always, I invite, even encourage you to share your thoughts.

This was not my first visit to Studio 54, but it certainly wasn’t the same place I remembered. Well, it was 25 years ago and a very different venue! The theatre is gorgeous, with old ornate woodwork and a very intimate feel to it. The orchestra was located in balconies on either side of the stage and sounded beautiful. I don’t imagine there was a bad seat in the house.

I forced myself to put all thoughts of Christian Hoff out of my mind…no comparisons, no what-could-have-beens…just watch the show and enjoy. I thought it would be hard to do, but when Joey (Matthew Risch) entered (or was thrown onto) the stage, I was captivated by him. He’s good looking, sexy, and he could really dance. I noticed I had a huge smile on my face at the end of “Chicago”. Off to a good start. I even found myself believing he was falling for Linda (Jenny Fellner), and really enjoyed their duet of “I Could Write A Book”. Jenny’s voice is flawless, and I could sense the innocence, as well as the desperation, in her character.

Stockard Channing’s portryal of Vera Simpson was harder for me to categorize. Yes, Vera is supposed to by cynical and hard, but I couldn’t decide if Ms. Channing was playing the part to perfection, or was just a little bored with the whole thing. Either way, the audience loved her, and Joey’s first encounter with Vera in the nightclub was quite entertaining. I didn’t totally buy into her passion for Joey, but her rendition of “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” gave the audience a glimpse into her “troubled soul”. The talk-singing I had heard so much about fit beautifully with her voice and her character, and I thouroughly enjoyed it.

The audience favorite, by far, was Gladys Bumps, played superbly by Martha Plimpton. Her sultry, smoky voice and great comedic timing made for a terrific “Zip”. I only wish we could have had more Martha, as the second Act dragged a little bit for me. My husband was very entertained by the “chorus girls”, who I suspect were his favorite part of the show. And we both enjoyed the voice of Daniel Marcus (as Ludlow Lowell). Wish we could have had more Daniel Marcus. Besides “Zip”, my favorite song of the second act was “Take Him”, performed beautifully by Fellner and Channing.

The costumes by William Ivey Long were perfection. Linda English was suitable dowdy, the chorus girls were just tacky enough, Joey was smashingly handsome in his well tailored suits, and Vera’s gowns and pant suits were beautifully rich without going overboard.

The stage was dark and smoky, which I suppose was appropriate for the gritty Chicago setting, but was a bit disctracting to me. And I thought the cast managed the stairways with great agility - not an easy feat. And Chez Joey was just tacky enough!

The show is helped along by a very strong supporting cast. Robert Clohessy and Steven Skybell (Mike and Ernest, respectively) could have handled parts with a little more meat to them, but both actors got the most out of their characters, and gave terrific performances.

I give Matthew Risch a great deal of credit for coming as far as he has in such a short time. He wasn’t quite the “leading man” this show needed, but I can certainly see it in his future. I found myself singing several of the songs in my head the next day, which is a good sign. I suspect that Pal Joey will have a great run, despite (or perhaps because of) all the drama surrounding it.

At Home With William Ivey Long

I came across the most wonderful interview with Pal Joey Costume Designer William Ivey Long on NewYorkSocialDiary.com. Along with the interesting conversation, the piece includes beautiful pictures of Long’s gorgeous home. Following are excerpts from the article. To read the article in it’s entirety - and you must to see the fabulous pictures - click here and ENJOY!

• by Sian Ballen and Lesley Hauge
• photographs by Jeffrey Hirsch

Five-time Tony award-winner William Ivey Long is such a successful costume designer that to list the productions in which he has been involved would read like some kind of history of Broadway over the past 30 years. Suffice to say that if you’ve seen any of the following: Hairspray, Dreamgirls, The Producers, Grey Gardens, Chicago … then you’ve seen his work. He has also designed costume for Mick Jagger’s tours and Siegfried and Roy…

…What’s the process of knowing how a costume is going to move?

Oh, well, actually I ask them to show me what they’re going to do in that scene. Like I was with Stockard Channing yesterday for three hours and we just did a few of the nine costumes I’m making for ‘Pal Joey’. I asked her to go through each of the songs, show me what she’s doing. We mocked up a bed—she sings ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’—no pressure there—she’s wearing a little teddy and I’m taking one of the fur-trimmed wraps from the previous scene … we’re making it so that it curves around… it also helps protect your …

Yeah, you don’t want a boob popping out.

Oh yes, and your arms, all over …

This is a distraction of mine but whenever I go to the theater, I notice that actors sweat a lot – I always wonder what happens to their costumes.

I have to know about fabrics, I have to know about maintenance. I pick natural fibers and we try not to have them dry-cleaned because it loosens the color and stretches the fabrics. We air them, we turn them inside out, we spray vodka on them.

You spray vodka on them?!

Vodka. Inexpensive vodka. Something in the culture kills bacteria. You mix it with a little water, so it’s not straight vodka, you turn everything inside out and you put a fan on it. I also make doubles. If it’s a dance show I always make doubles.

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