Nineteen productions have opened on Broadway so far this year – a little over three shows per month. Only one production (a revival of Cats) is opening between now and the end of September. This isn’t an uncommon situation. Last year only two shows opened between June and September. The movie industry churns out a blockbuster every weekend over the summer, what is different about the theater?
With the Tonys behind us, we take a look at this year’s top Tony Awards Experts.
Over the past six weeks, I have been tracking the Tony nominees as they vied for their chance to hear their name called Sunday night. Here are our team’s predictions.
In anticipation of Sunday’s Tony Awards, here’s a look at the makeup of the nominees.
Who stands the best chance to take home the hardware on Sunday? We go through each category, setting the final odds for each nominee. Where would you place your bet?
I talk a lot on the blog about “movement” in the Tony race. Who’s chances went up, and who’s chances went down. But where does all of this movement come from? Here, I outline some of the things that producers and performers do during the campaign to increase their chances.
Let’s take a look at what each actress up for Featured Actress in a Play has going for them as they vie for their chance to take the stage on Tony night.
For the all-new OHenry Report on BroadwayWorld.com, please click here. Oliver discusses the key news items. Topics covered include: Paramour Opening, Spring Awakening Kickstarter, Tuck Everlasting Closing, Dear Evan Hansen’s Broadway Transfer and last weekend’s Theatre World, Lilly, and OBIE Awards.
While Leslie Odom, Jr. has been favorite to win the Tony for Lead Actor in a Musical, Broadway veteran Danny Burstein has been surging and is now a heavy contender, if not favorite, to win. I take a look at why he’s so rapidly rising to be the favorite.
Cynthia Erivo is the current frontrunner in the Lead Actress in A Musical category – a position she has maintained since the nominees were announced on May 3rd. Here are the top seven reasons she’s stayed at the top
“An Upset,” a one-act play by David Auburn first seen in New York in 2008, is being revived around the city timed to the Open, including three shows at 99 Bowery beginning Sept. 12.
“It’s always hard to put a finger on why something is suddenly in the zeitgeist,” said Ruhl, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and a Tony Award nominee. “I don’t know why it is happening with tennis in theater right now. But for me, while researching the Bush dynasty, I realized tennis is such a big part of their lives and a wonderful metaphor for family competition and sibling rivalry.”
In “Scenes From Court Life,” Greg Keller plays George W. Bush as a more shrewd politician than his brother Jeb but an inferior tennis player.
“Athletes are almost another species to playwrights,” Keller said. “The writer’s world is so subjective, but for athletes there is always a winner and a loser.”
Tennis holds undeniable appeal for the theater. For starters, it can encompass widely different settings, including the Bush family compound, the public courts of the Lower East Side and Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Tennis, Keller said, is also “one-on-one, but you are not physically touching each other like in boxing.”
He added, “You are in your own little world.”
Bragen has written other works about tennis, including a monologue called “Game, Set, Match.” He said the sport offered intimacy and isolation — great fodder for writers.
“There’s a kind of dance that I feel as a player, but you are alone in your own head at the same time you are connected to other person,” Bragen said.
Ruhl said she liked the combat mixed with decorum, “the formality within the structure of competition.”
Ryan Sweeney, who played Division I tennis at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is producing and starring in “An Upset,” said, “Tennis is a lonely sport, and Auburn’s script touches on the players’ vulnerabilities.”
